Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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356. To ask the Minister for Health if a HSE surgical hub will be introduced at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown (details supplied). [6963/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Creating ring-fenced elective-only capacity will achieve the planned separation between emergency and elective care. This will release existing hospital capacity for acute care and will get us closer to the 12 weeks Sláintecare access targets. The development of a national network of four Elective Treatment Facilities (Cork, Galway and 2 in Dublin) is provided for in the Programme for Government. Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown has been identified as a preferred location for one of these new facilities.

In addition, six planned Surgical hubs will address interim national elective care capacity needs ahead of their completion. Just as the Elective Hospitals, the hubs will perform high volume low acuity day procedures and diagnostics. Once operational, each hub will deliver over 28,000 day-cases annually.

In addition to the Reeves surgical centre in Tallaght, which is already fully operational, two of these six new surgical hubs will be delivered Dublin. The Mount Carmel surgical hub already opened earlier this month in South Dublin while construction is well underway for the surgical hub in Swords in north Dublin, with an indicative timeframe to become operational in the last quarter of this year.

The remaining surgical hubs will be delivered in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, and they will become operational over the course of 2026 while the feasibility of a hub for the northwest is being explored in line with the Programme for Government.