The Mater Hospital in Dublin has joined forces with the Rotunda and Temple Street hospitals in a campaign to rescue the national children’s hospital planned for the Mater site in Eccles Street.
It is understood the latest proposal is based on a willingness by the Sisters of Mercy, who own the Mater, to cede the original hospital building to the State so that it could be used to accommodate the teaching and research facilities associated with the children's hospital – thus allowing the building to be scaled down.
The chairman of the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital; the chairman of the Children's University Hospital, Temple Street; and the chairwoman of the Rotunda Hospital said they had "come together as a single entity to reinforce the case for proceeding with the national paediatric hospital on the Mater site".
Speaking on behalf of the three hospitals, Temple Street Hospital chairman Donal Walsh said they welcomed the opportunity to make a submission to the recently established National Paediatric Hospital Review Group, and had written to chairman Dr Frank Dolphin, seeking a meeting to present their proposal.
This follows An Bord Pleanála's unexpected decision on February 23rd to refuse planning permission for the proposed development on the basis that its height, bulk, scale and mass would have a "profound negative impact" on Dublin's skyline and "seriously detract from the setting and character of protected structures".
In a joint statement issued to The Irish Times, the three hospitals said their "tripartite submission" to the review group would involve a redesign of the rejected scheme, with a reduction in height "to comply with local area planning" and a reduction in its density, but with "no diminution in the clinical and care services".
Expressing confidence that the submission would meet "all the requirements" of the review group, they said the scheme would make full provision for "tri-located" adult, maternity and paediatric services, adding that it would fulfil "best cost and value for money criteria" and could be built with "minimal delay".
The three hospitals – chaired by John Morgan (Mater), Hilary Prentice (Rotunda) and Mr Walsh (Temple Street) – said they were working with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, headed by Harry Crosbie, "to ensure that the most appropriate solution is put forward to the review group as a national priority".
Asked to confirm that the latest plan is based on an offer by the Mater to cede part of its site to the State, PR company Corporate Reputations said: "We are not putting forward a spokesperson or offering additional comment at this point, but will be issuing more updates on the submission as this campaign progresses."
In 2006, the Sisters of Mercy agreed to cede just over two hectares (nearly five acres) of land at the Mater to facilitate development of the children's hospital "unencumbered and at no cost to the State". They further indicated a willingness to cede a smaller area of land for the development of a "co-located" maternity hospital.
The move is seen by some as an effort to ensure that the hospital is built at the Mater, rather than any alternative site, but it remains to be seen whether the project can be sufficiently scaled down to achieve planning permission from An Bord Pleanála.
Proposals for at least 15 alternative sites have been submitted to the review group appointed last month by Minister for Health James Reilly, including the offer earlier this week by developers Flynn and O'Flaherty of an eight-acre site on the former Phoenix Park racecourse.
