A NEW €100m critical care unit for the Rotunda Hospital has been denied planning permission by An Coimisiún Pleanála due to a small number of objections. 

The new building was to include 80 additional hospital rooms and a new operating theatre. 

Planning permission for the project was initially granted by Dublin City Council, however it went to an appeal, which An Coimisiún Pleanála today upheld. 

The commission wrote in its decision order that it agreed with appellants that the current proposal to demolish the existing outpatients building and replace it with a four-storey critical care wing would not protect the architectural design of Parnell square. 

The decision has been slammed as “ludicrous” by Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon, who said the state should intervene if necessary.

“Architectural preservation should never take precedence over the preservation of life and that’s actually what this decision suggests,” Gannon told The Journal.

A senior source has told The Journal that the decision is a “kick in the teeth”. 

Senior staff including the Master of the Rotunda, Prof Sean Daly, and the Clinical Director Vicky O’Dwyer wrote to staff to inform them of the decision. 

“This is incredibly disappointing news for us all, but most importantly for the families that we serve,” they said. 

They also said that they had been in meeting with stakeholders all afternoon to explore “every avenue open to us” to deal with this “blow” to their “plans for the future of the Rotunda Hospital on Parnell Square. 

The project was planned for the western side of Parnell Square. 

Last year Prof Sean Daly urged the Government to review the planning process in regards to healthcare-related infrastructure at the time that the application went to an appeal after conservation groups objected. 

The Irish Times reported at the start of last year that he had written a letter to the Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill in which he said that while he understood her influence was limited when it came to planning matters, when it comes to vital healthcare services, “alternative solutions need to be considered”. 

He said that the new wing was essential locally and nationally for the provision of high-quality pregnancy-related and neonatal intensive care. 

Conservation groups including the Dublin Civic Trust and An Taisce argued that the new wing would damage the 18th century city-centre square and the long-term prospects for regeneration once the hospital eventually moved to Blanchardstown under long-term plans. 

The new hospital would have provided resources to assist medics in treating the most vulnerable cohort treated within our healthcare system, neonatal babies. 

Plans included single facility rooms for infants, which none of the current Dublin hospitals treating this cohort have access to. 

A source familiar with the plans for the hospital this evening said that single rooms better enable medics to manage outbreaks during RSV and influenza season. 

They said that in older hospital buildings, parents are sometimes separated from children while they are sick because of layout constraints rather than medical need. 

The source said that the new single room capacity is vital for the future neonatal care nationally. 

They added that high-risk mothers would have benefited from the new building also, as the current facilities for their care at the Rotunda need “significant improvement”. 

“The Rotunda hospital is the oldest maternity hospital in the world,” Gary Gannon said.

“Who in their right senses could witness the cramped conditions of the neo-natal unit as it presently is, and object to providing a modern, fit-for-purpose space for some of the most vulnerable babies born in this city?

“It’s a ludicrous decision and if it requires specialist exemption to achieve it, then that’s now what the state should do.

“I live five minutes from the Rotunda, I value immensely the heritage of this city, but no aesthetic quality is worth more than appropriate women’s healthcare and the best possible treatment for babies born in this city.”