The best site for children’s hospital

THE proposed location for a new National Children’s Hospital is on a site belonging to the man-in-the-cupboard’s ‘alma Mater’ where he served his time as an accountant before becoming Taoiseach.

At €1.5 million a bed, that’s 50% dearer than the reported industry norm and hardly exemplifies the hairshirt lifestyle we citizens have planned for us.

The silence of the parliamentary opposition does not augur well: do they support what is happening or not?

Neither Dublin city nor county is the best location for a national hospital. The centre of gravity of our population is west of Dublin. Eccles Street is already congested. It remains a street of frail but attractive Georgian houses. What is to happen to them under the vibration of pile-driving in the extensive subterranean works which the daft location envisages? How are the staff and patients of the nuns’ Mater to fare in such conditions?

Years of vibration, dust and construction noise and traffic will be visited upon them. Is the site value part of the ‘philanthropy’ and, if so, at what price to the public? There is a greenfield site 10 miles west of O’Connell Bridge astride the west Leixlip-Celbridge interchange where the existing architectural plans can be dropped in at far less cost.

The lands are still in agricultural use and have been greatly enhanced by more than €30m worth of publicly-funded road infrastructure; they ought to be acquired by CPO.

The lands are served by Dublin Bus at 20-minute intervals to the city and are less than five minutes from the Maynooth/ Longford/ Sligo train service to Connolly station. They are on the M4/M6 to the west and northwest and within five miles of the M50 at the Palmerstown/Liffey Valley nexus, providing rapid access to north, south and south-west; there’s even a local airport minutes away (Weston).

The new, general hospital at Tallaght is only 20 minutes away by road, and there is all the water and electricity such a hospital would require. Thanks to the Government’s policy of ‘growing’ hotels devoid of a market, the area has several of these together with old hotels and B&Bs in the adjoining towns of Leixlip, Celbridge, Maynooth, Lucan.

John Colgan

The Toll House

Leixlip

Co Kildare