asked the Minister for Health if he will give an assurance that, in the proposed transfer of the infants' unit from the site intended as a Garden of Remembrance, there will be no interruption in the badly needed and magnificent medical and nursing services provided there for the sick infants of the City of Dublin.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Garden of Remembrance: Transfer of Infants' Unit.
The proposed arrangements for the removal of the existing temporary infants' unit from the site intended as a Garden of Remembrance envisage the replacement of this unit by a new building in permanent form to be erected on an alternative site within the grounds of the Rotunda Hospital. The new unit will provide facilities for the treatment of the same number of infants and every effort will be made to ensure that there will be no interruption in either the scope or extent of the services at present being provided by the hospital in this connection.
Is it not obvious that these children would be better housed in a new building rather than in Deputy Dr. Browne's shacks?
Is it intended to erect this new building prior to the removal of the existing shacks, as the Deputy has described them?
Order!
Would the Minister indicate when this work is likely to commence?
We hope to have it begun in the year, 1958 and completed within 12 months.
And, while work is going on, there will be no interference with the present structure?
Will the Minister say if it was ever essential for this site to be used for this purpose?
Of course it was.
In my opinion, it was not.
Is it not a fact that this site was acquired in 1839 for the specific purpose of a Garden of Remembrance? In 1949 temporary accommodation was given to the hospital authorities. Is it not obvious that, had that temporary accommodation not been given, better accommodation would now be available for the children?
The children would have been all gone.
The children would not have been gone. This site was there for the erection of a permanent unit, and the whole thing was a political stunt on the part of Clann na Poblachta.
Sixteen years Fianna Fáil had it, and they did nothing about it.