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LAST UPDATE | 13 Feb
MINISTER FOR HEALTH Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said she’s “deeply disappointed” by a decision to deny the Rotunda Hospital planning permission to build a critical care unit for women and infants.
The Rotunda Board, Executive Management Team and all staff of the Rotunda Hospital have also said they are “bitterly disappointed” and that the “decision will have devastating consequences”.
The Journal reported yesterday that An Coimisiún Pleanála had overturned a decision by Dublin City Council to allow the facility.
The new building was to include 80 additional hospital rooms and a new operating theatre.
The commission wrote in its decision that it agreed with objections that the 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.
Speaking to The Journal, Carroll MacNeill said she is “deeply disappointed that this important development for premature and critically unwell babies” has been refused.
“Health infrastructure is essential for our community.
“Jack Chambers and I are working on every possible route to simplify the delivery of the health care facilities our people so badly need in their moments of vulnerability.
Health infrastructure is critical infrastructure. Simple as that.
Asked about the planning permission refusal, Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers told this website that too many important infrastructure projects are taking far too long to be delivered, stating this is causing huge frustration.
“These delays are also holding Ireland back socially and economically,” he said, adding:
In the case of this project for the Rotunda, this planning outcome is surprising and is a seriously negative development in the need to deliver this critical new health infrastructure for mothers and babies across Dublin.
He said the government is undertaking a radical plan of infrastructure delivery reform to speed up how we deliver important capital projects. The minister said the Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce, which he chairs, has identified planning and legal systems as major barriers to delivery.
“Working with government colleagues, I am reforming these sectors so that we reduce legal and planning challenges to important capital infrastructure projects,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, the Rotunda Hospital said that earlier this week, An Coimisiún Pleanála “decided not to accept the recommendations of its Inspector, the HSE and Dublin City Council to grant permission for its critical care wing development”.
“Most affected will be the tiny fragile premature infants who require prolonged, safe intensive care which should be provided in a modern 21st century neonatal intensive care unit,” added the hospital.
It also remarked that “pregnant women will also be impacted by being cared for in clinical areas that were built in 1757 and are no longer fit for purpose”.
“The future of this project is now uncertain and we will now carefully consider our options going forward to ensure the best care for our patients.”
The €100m critical care unit for the Rotunda Hospital was denied planning permission by An Coimisiún Pleanála due to a small number of conservation groups.
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 building on the Rotunda site 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 yesterday 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.
Senior staff including the Master of the Rotunda Sean Daly and clinical director Vicky O’Dwyer wrote to staff yesterday telling them that it is “incredibly disappointing news for us all, but most importantly for the families that we serve”.
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.
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 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”.
Opposition members have also voiced there frustration with the decision.
Labour TD Marie Sherlock said she was “very disappointed” to see the Rotunda Hospital refused planning permission.
“Dublin City needs to protect our great Georgian architecture and provide much needed services,” she said, stating that it is important to say the hospital was there first, in what is now Parnell Square, before the houses were ever built.
The decision was slammed as “ludicrous” by Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon yesterday, 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.
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.
The Rotunda has the highest number of births per annum at almost 9,000.
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Ray McAdam, said that the planned extension of the hospital is essential to provide vital care and alternative solutions must be found.
“Projects like the Rotunda critical care extension are not optional developments. They are essential national health infrastructure that will save lives,” he said in a statement.
“Planning and community engagement must remain vital parts of the process, but for projects of critical public importance, decisions must be made quickly, clearly and within defined timelines.”
With reporting by Eimer McAuley
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