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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 22 Oct 1992

Vol. 424 No. 2

Tallaght (Dublin) Hospital Project.

I am deeply grateful to you, a Cheann Comhairle, for permitting me to raise the important issue of the construction of Tallaght Regional Hospital. I am aware that I have tried your patience in regard to this issue because of the number of times I have sought permission to raise it by way of Adjournment debate and parliamentary questions. Nonetheless, I ask you and the House to understand the importance of this issue for the people of Tallaght and Clondalkin and the surrounding region which houses just short of 250,000 people.

I will give the Minister the respect of assuming that I do not have to go back over all the arguments again because he is very familiar with them. Will the Minister tell the House that the Government have agreed to go ahead with the construction of Tallaght Regional Hospital? There is growing disillusion among the people in Clondalkin and Tallaght and the surrounding area because of the growing conviction that the Government are beginning to use the question of a regional hospital in Tallaght as a political ploy in the run up to a general election.

I will be the first to welcome a positive decision by the Minister and the first to praise him for making it, because with the single exception of unemployment no other issue means so much to my constituents. It is frustrating that in trying to elicit information from the Minister and the Government we are fobbed off with reference to reviews and studies and told that "the matter is under active consideration". For example, I refer to the reply I got from the Minister of State on this matter on 9 July which said:

The Kennedy Group submitted their report to my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy O'Connell, very recently and it is at present under active consideration.

Yesterday, I put that question to the Minister and he replied:

The position is that the report of the Kennedy Group, which were set up to examine the functions, scope and scale of the proposed Tallaght Hospital, together with the funding options for building the new hospital, is under active consideration at present.

The reply does not show any respect to an elected Member of this House for the constituency, that so many months later I get precisely the same reply with no attempt to elaborate or to explain. I do not know whether the Minister for Health is involved in the local Fianna Fáil organisation but councillors are going round the constituency telling people that it is in the bag and that there is no problem. They have gone further and said that the Taoiseach will attend a local function on 6 November at which he will announce the building of the hospital and that tenders will be invited in January. I sincerely hope all that is true, but the Minister should have sufficient respect for the House to take the opportunity here — since it is a matter of such acute concern to people — to say that, having regard to all the considerations, medical as well as employment, the fact that three hospitals are due for closure in the city and that such an enormously populous area must have a general hospital, he has decided to proceed.

I sincerely hope that the Minister will do that and also deal with major questions which arise concerning the size, facilities and procedures which will be available at the hospital and indeed the implications, if any of the involvement of private funding for access to hospital care in the area.

I am glad the Deputy has given me an opportunity to speak in regard to the Tallaght Hospital project. The Tallaght Hospital is the last part of the planned development of six major general hospitals in the Dublin area. I would like to reiterate both my own and the Government's commitment to the Tallaght Hospital project. I have given this reassurance on many occasions and I am happy to repeat it again today.

Deputies will be aware that the hospital has been planned on the basis that the Meath, Adelaide and National Children's Hospitals will transfer to the new hospital. All three hospitals and their staffs have contributed fully to the planning process for the hospital. However, concerns have been expressed in this House and elsewhere that the ethos and traditions of the Adelaide Hospital may not be protected in the new hospital. Both I and previous Ministers for Health have always stated that the traditions of the Adelaide will be protected and that the traditions of the other hospitals involved in the new hospital will also be fully protected. With regard to the Adelaide, a specific assurance has been given in relation to 40 places being retained for trainee nurses from the Protestant tradition.

A working group chaired by Mr. David Kingston was established by my predecessor, Deputy Rory O'Hanlon, to examine management structures for the new hospital. I have received this report and am glad to state that a large measure of agreement on possible structures was achieved. I feel confident that with the necessary goodwill on all sides the remaining issues can be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties in due course.

As Deputies will be aware, there have been many changes in the way in which medicine is practised in the interim with new techniques, new technology and drug treatments giving rise to much shorter stays in hospital and in many instances day treatment is now possible where two and three days stays were necessary in former times. These developments have meant that the same number of patients can now be treated in our hospitals with less overnight bed accommodation being necessary.

The Tallaght Hospital was planned before many of these medical developments and bearing in mind this factor a report was commissioned by my predecessor from the Dublin Hospital Initiative Group, headed by Professor David Kennedy, to examine the functions, scope and scale of the proposed hospital and the funding options for building of the new hospital. This report has been received and the recommendations there in are under active consideration at present. Progress is being made.

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