Cork elective hospital will still be at planning stage by 2030, Oireachtas committee hears 

The hospital had originally been slated for completion in 2027

Questioned on elective hospitals, the department assistant secretary Derek Tierney said: 'We are actively pursuing the statutory planning consent with the local authorities for both Galway and Cork at the moment, particularly with Cork.' Picture: Denis Minihane.

An elective hospital planned for a Cork suburb — which had been slated for completion by 2027 — is now expected to be still at planning stage by 2030, the Oireachtas Health Committee has been told.

It also heard there is “a problem” with children’s waiting lists for mental health services in Kerry and Cork.

In relation to the hospital delay, in December 2023, the department of health told the Irish Examiner: “Current targets are for construction to commence in 2026 and to be completed in 2027, with delivery of elective hospital services to patients thereafter."

HSE and department of health officials were before the committee to discuss a range of issues on Wednesday.

Questioned on elective hospitals, the department assistant secretary Derek Tierney said: “We are actively pursuing the statutory planning consent with the local authorities for both Galway and Cork at the moment, particularly with Cork.” 

This is focused on access to and from the St Stephen’s hospital campus in Glanmire, he told Fianna Fáil TD Padraig O’Sullivan.

He insisted it is still part of planning and Glanmire remains the selected site.

He then told Labour TD Marie Sherlock: “We’re committed in this five years to progress them and our real work is to get them up to shovel-ready status."

She asked whether that means the public will not have elective hospitals by 2030, and he replied: 

They will have seven surgical hubs and we’ll be progressing the design and statutory planning of our elective hospitals. 

In December 2022, the then government committed the hubs would be open within 18 months. The number of planned hubs has grown since then but only the south Dublin hub is open. 

HSE head of strategic health infrastructure and capital delivery Brian O'Connell also defended progress on the hospitals. He denied the plan is “on the back burner” to Fine Gael TD Colm Burke but did not give a target date for applying for planning.

Mr O’ Connell also said construction work is continuing at Mallow hospital and is "currently scheduled for completion for Q4 next year”.

HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster was asked about “horrendous” numbers of children waiting for mental health care in Kerry by Fianna Fáil TD Michael Cahill.

Mr Gloster described the waiting lists as at “quite unacceptable levels”.

He conceded there is limited access to data, saying: “We don’t even know the accuracy of some of the waiting lists.” 

Mr Gloster also warned that, despite funding training places for psychologists and expanding numbers “by hundreds in recent years”, vacancies remain.

“To be quite frank, unless we start knitting them we are not going to have enough with the type of demand that’s there,” he said.

“And we have to get to a more informed level of demand as to when is it appropriate to refer children to different levels of service including clinical psychology.” 

He said “there is a problem in Cork and Kerry”, referring to delays.