A FINAL DECISION on the site of the new National Children’s Hospital will be made “in the next two to three weeks”, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.
Kenny said the Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, was “in a position now” to present the independent report on possible sites to the Cabinet, he said – but the report had to first be discussed privately with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore.
“The government will, in its decision, make the best attempt that it can of doing absolutely the right thing,” Kenny told Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin in the Dáil.
The Taoiseach added that government had “not commissioned another independent report in this matter,” following reports in the Irish Independent this morning that Gilmore was in the process of doing his own research into possible venues.
Kenny later asserted in the Dáil that the independent Dolphin Report into hospital venues “will be available once the government has made its decision”.
“The process here is now is very clear: this is a government project, this is a government decision,” he said.
“When the minister brings his recommendations to government, the government will make its decision in the best interests of all the people of the country.”
Martin said the news that the Tánaiste was undertaking his own investigations “serves to isolate even further, and undermines the role and position, of Minister Reilly within the Cabinet”.
“The Tánaiste, his advisers and officials seem to be saying they do not trust Minister Reilly to take the correct decision here.”
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