Hospital taskforce underestimates the numbers

THE HSE taskforce planning the high-rise children’s hospital on the Mater site in Dublin has decided it will have only 380 beds — 16% less than the 450/480 beds currently available in the three existing paediatric hospitals which it will replace in Dublin.

The same HSE told its own board last October that there were 41,000 births in Ireland in the first eight months of 2006 — an increase of 5.9% on its own estimates for the year. Maybe Bertie Ahern might decide to freeze this seriously flawed project and have it reviewed objectively.

Otherwise he might find its eccentricities — as currently conceived — will dog him throughout his third, fourth and fifth terms as Taoiseach.