Scrap the crazy plan to put sick children into a sky-high bottleneck

THANKFULLY there is still time to save the people of this country from the serious mistake of building a new national children’s hospital in Dublin’s north-inner city on the grounds of the already crowded Mater Hospital complex.

The HSE seems determined to press ahead with the construction in the grounds of the Mater. It is boasting that the delay in a project that should have been completed by 2012, but which now may be finished by 2015, could save the state some money; if it goes ahead it would be a few hundred million euro cheaper because of the massively reduced building costs arising from the recession.

However, there remain many problems that should be resolved by the relocation of the hospital. One is that even at a reduced cost of €650m there is not enough state money available to build the more cheaply priced hospital. The state has left the project a substantial €200m short of what it will cost.