John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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153. To ask the Minister for Health if he will report on the suspension of the two projects vital to future developments at Tallaght University Hospital; when these projects will commence; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41403/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The National Development Plan provides €10.9 billion to invest in infrastructure, equipment and additional service capacity for the public health sector. This represents an increase of 165% in capital funding over the previous decade. The additional capital funding is predominately in the second half of the plan.

With this unprecedented capital investment in the Health services we must ensure that we carefully plan and select projects. This process will be guided by National health strategy and policy including the implementation of Sláintecare.

A key challenge to delivery of the plan concerns the profiling of the capital funding available, whereby the increased annual allocations are back-loaded towards the latter years of the NDP. There are also pressures arising from factors including inflation, increased construction costs due to changes in building regulations and very high level of claims currently being experienced on projects.

As the HSE is responsible for the delivery of health care infrastructure projects, I have asked the HSE to reply directly to you in relation to the current position on proposed developments at Tallaght University Hospital.