Labour concerned about plan to merge children’s hospitals

The Labour Party has expressed serious concerns about the Health Service Executive's plan to replace Ireland's three children's hospitals with one centralised facility.

The HSE confirmed today that it planned to build a new children's hospital to replace the existing ones in the Tallaght, Crumlin and Temple Street areas of Dublin.

Labour TD Liz McManus has expressed concern that this could lead to a downgrading of services and a reduction in the accessibility of treatment.

"The fact that people can access services for children both on the northside of Dublin and on the southside does help children," she said.

"I would be very concerned if we ended up with just one very large hospital servicing, not just the city of Dublin, but the entire country."

Meanwhile, Ms McManus's party colleague Joe Costello has slammed the Department of Health's approach to the whole idea of reforming paediatric services.

The decision to centralise services has been made on foot of recommendations from independent consultants hired to conduct a review of the paediatric system.

That review was commissioned despite the fact that Temple Street Hospital had already spend almost €50m on preparing for its proposed relocation to a new building on the grounds of the Mater Hospital.

"Temple Street is in one of the most dilapidated buildings that you could find anywhere in the city and now, when parents and staff expected that they were going to get their brand new hospital, here you have the Department of Health pulling the plug at the last hour and leaving them high and dry," Mr Costello said.