My Department has allocated €17m to support the provision of 3,486sqm of higher education facilities at the National Children’s Hospital. €10m of the funding allocated was drawn down by the Department of Health in 2019. The balance of funding is expected to be drawn down across 2021 and 2022.
This allocation will support provision of facilities for specialist undergraduate and postgraduate training in areas such as pediatric medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, radiography and psychology. The higher education space is fully embedded in the overall hospital building project and is being delivered under the governance arrangements for that project.
In relation to 'the number of additional healthcare roles by profession that will be provided when the hospital is operational in tabular form', my Department has no information in this regard. The Department of Health has advised that as this relates to an operational issue, it is a matter for the HSE.
The Department of Health request that members of the Oireachtas should be advised that the HSE is currently unable to access the information to answer Parliamentary Questions due to the recent cyber-attack, which has required a temporary shut-down of HSE IT systems. The disruption to service is on-going, and the HSE is working hard to restore its IT capacity and resume normal services. Members of the Oireachtas will be advised as soon as the HSE is again in a position to provide responses to PQs and are encouraged to resubmit their Parliamentary Questions at that point.
