National Children’s Hospital to lead to thousands of jobs in Dublin
An independent report on the €650m investment points out that 2,000 construction jobs, plus 300 jobs in services will be created during the construction phase.
About 3,700 National Children’s Hospital employees will join 4,000 existing St James’s Hospital employees on the growing medical campus.
A Bord Pleanála oral hearing is expected to get under way on November 30 with the planning authority aiming to reach a decision by February next year.
The new children’s hospital will bring together on a single site Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, Temple Street Children’s University Hospital and the National Children’s Hospital at Tallaght Hospital.
The independent chair of the Community Benefits Oversight Group, Gordon Jeyes, said they wanted to people living in the community to benefit from the project.
Mr Jeyes, who is also chief executive of the the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, said there would be guaranteed apprenticeships and training places for people living in the community.
“We are building a world class facility here in the centre of Dublin and it is going to be a fantastic neighbour for this community,” said Mr Jeyes.
Mr Jeyes said he was working with the Community Benefits Oversight Group on a voluntary basis because he wanted the project to benefit from his experience as executive chairman of Scotland’s first urban regeneration company in Raploch in Stirling.
“It was a multi-deprived community in the heart of a lot of affluence and we were trying to get people back to being part of a whole community,” he said.
The project director for the development board, John Pollock, said they would be ready to start building the hospital early next year, assuming they got permission from the planning authority.
Construction of the hospital is not expected to be completed until the end of 2019 or early the following year.
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dálaigh, said she was glad the city would realise the full benefit of what was the largest health infrastructure investment in the history of the State.
