‘Traffic taken into account in Mater choice’

TRAFFIC congestion in Dublin’s city centre was taken into account before the Health Service Executive (HSE) decided to locate the new children’s hospital at the Mater site, it was claimed yesterday.

The Department of Public Health and Primary care at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), had been asked by the HSE to examine public and private travel times in relation to seven potential sites for the new hospital development.

One of the authors of the study, Conor Teljeur, said there was little difference in travel times between the three Dublin hospitals — Tallaght, St James’s and the Mater, which competed strongly for the building project.

“There is not a huge difference. Tallaght Hospital is very slightly better for private transport but the differences are very, very small,” he said yesterday.

He insisted, however, that traffic jams were taken into account. Researchers also checked their figures against those of other transport bodies and found that they were very similar.

Mr Teljeur also pointed out that the study took into account travel times at both peak and off-peak times. “I am absolutely happy about the integrity of the figures,” he said.

He also said that city centre based hospitals all fared better in relation to public transport.

Another study commissioned for Tallaght Hospital found that almost three-quarters of country’s child population were closer to Tallaght.

Author of the study, Dr Enda Murphy, a research fellow at the department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at TCD, said Tallaght Hospital was nationally the most accessible hospital.

He found that 74% of the child population aged 0 to 15 and 65% of women aged 15 to 35 were closer to Tallaght than to St James’s or the Mater by private transport.

When it comes to public transport, however, St James’s was a clear winner because it links to the Luas and proximity to Heuston Station.

The study also found that for those in the Dublin region travelling by car, the Mater was the most acceptable, followed by Tallaght.

Dr Murphy said that the TCD researchers were also anxious to look at traffic congestion and find out actual journey times, during their study.

Like the HSE study, they used the data base of the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO) to simulate real traffic conditions in the Dublin region.

When they looked at peak and off-peak travel times, however, they found that Tallaght still came out best.