Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 5 Nov 1991

Vol. 412 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - Tallaght (Dublin) New Hospital.

Mr. Rabbitte

I am deeply grateful to you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me this further opportunity to raise this especially pressing question for so many people in the Dublin south-west and surrounding areas. Indeed, as I listened to Deputy Deenihan making the case for adequate staffing levels at Tralee General Hospital — a case I fully support and with which I am familiar — I could not be but struck by the fact that I am speaking on behalf of a region of 250,000 people who do not have any general hospital. In a peculiar way that puts into perspective the desperate case which has to be made once again for the Tallaght Regional Hospital.

It is timely that this debate should coincide with the culmination of a series of protest meetings throughout Tallaght ending tonight with a public rally in The Square demanding that the building of the hospital is allowed to go ahead. I have dealt on previous occasions in several parliamentary questions and on two previous adjournment debates — with the history of the sorry saga of the Tallaght hospital and I do not think it is necessary to do that again. However, I reiterate that, with the possible exception of unemployment, this issue dominates the political agenda of the 90,000 people in the greater Tallaght area and the further 150,000 people in the adjacent areas of Clondalkin, Walkinstown, Rathcoole, Newcastle, west Wicklow and north Kildare.

Indeed, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Flood, attended these protest meetings with me and heard at first hand the graphic description by the people at these public meetings of the desperate need which exists for this hospital to be given the goahead and the growing fear that, if a further year's Estimates pass without provision being made for the hospital, it may well be doomed. I am sure the Minister of State was listening this evening to Mr. Pat Griffith on radio on behalf of the Tallaght action committee setting out once again the case for this hospital. Will the Minister of State take this opportunity to reply to Mr. Smith's plea that the Minister would meet the Tallaght action committee at the earliest possible date to discuss the future of the hospital? There is no point in Deputy Flood, who told the people during the 1989 general election "that the construction of Tallaght hospital will be brought forward to 1990, saying "that he has provided for this in the Estimates of the Department of Health which have gone to Government. The issue is, have the Government provided for it? Will the Government permit Tallaght hospital to get under way next year? If this Government at the drop of a hat could find £10 million to buy the Dr. Michael Smurfit Business School, surely they can find a lesser sum to enable the Tallaght hospital to be built. I note that in tonight's Evening Press the secretary of the hospital, Mr. Des Rogan, is quoted as saying that the amount of funding needed to start the project is “not very high”: I understand he is talking about a figure of between £5 million and £6 million, which would allow the hospital to get under way by early summer. That figure is almost the same as those people involved in the Johnson, Mooney and O'Brien site transaction managed to avoid paying taxes due to the Exchequer.

I will conclude by asking the Minister to explain how the proposed reorganisation of the Eastern Health Board can proceed if the Tallaght hospital is not built. It is my understanding that the Tallaght hospital is central to the proposed restructuring of the Eastern Health Board. How can the reorganisation which envisages a district health board linked to a general hospital in the south-west area take place when we do not have the general hospital? To include the Tallaght regional hospital in the Estimates or to fail to do so is a political decision which, if it were made in the positive sense, would be a tremendous boost to the area, it would mean the provision of a desperately needed facility and would enhance employment prospects not only at construction stage but after the hospital is commissioned. I plead with the Minister tonight to indicate that work will commence in 1992.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Mr. Flood)

I am very pleased that the Deputy has once again afforded me an opportunity to explain the position in relation to the construction of the new hospital at Tallaght. As the Deputy is aware, the original plan for the development of hospital services in Dublin provided for six major hospitals, three on the north side, Beaumont hospital, the Mater hospital and Blanchardstown hospital, and three on the south side, St. James's hospital, St. Vincent's hospital and the new hospital at Tallaght.

With the recent opening of the new Mater Hospital and the commissioning of St. James's hospital later this year, Tallaght will be the only part of the plan still to be put in place. I wish to reiterate that I am fully committed to this project.

In this regard, I should perhaps remind the Deputy that it was on the invitation of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy O'Hanlon, that the three hospitals involved in the move to Tallaght — the Meath, the Adelaide and the National Children's Hospital — came together to agree the management structure for the new hospital. We look forward to receiving the group's report as soon as possible.

The Deputy will be aware of the fact that the Tallaght hospital project, costing an estimated £118 million, will be the biggest health project ever undertaken in this country. I have previously informed the Deputy that the construction period involved is about four years, following which a further period of about 18 months would be required for commissioning.

As the Deputy has already indicated to the House, a series of meetings have been held in the greater Tallaght area — indeed, one is being held tonight which we both hope to attend. I assure the Deputy that I have conveyed in the fullest and frankest way the views expressed by those who attended those meetings and the difficulties they put forward with regard to how they perceive the lack of a hospital will impinge upon their ability to obtain an adequate health service in the greater Tallaght area.

Since taking office in the Department of Health, I have set out very clearly that Tallaght, because of its population and social structure, needs a hospital and that it should be provided at the earliest possible opportunity. My regret is, of course, that the hospital was not provided much sooner. That matter has already been discussed in this House, as the Deputy has pointed out, and it is now a matter of history. I am in a position to tell the Deputy that, as he has referred to a radio programme this afternoon and a call by Mr. Griffith to meet with the Minister, I will be informing the action group of a scheduled meeting with my colleague, the Minister for Health, at a time that will suit the committee.

In relation to the commencement work on his project, the capital allocation available to my Department for 1991 does not allow for the commencement of the Tallaght project in 1991. However, as I have indicated on several occasions previously, together with the Minister, Deputy O'Hanlon I will be considering the development of the Tallaght hospital project in the context of the capital resources available to the Department in 1991 and subsequent years.