Planning applications for children’s hospital delayed

Planning for the new national children’s hospital has been hit by further delays, it has emerged. The Government’s flagship project is unlikely to be fully operational until 2019, three years after it was promised.

The development board overseeing the project has confirmed claims by Fianna Fáil that a planning application will not be submitted this year, as originally scheduled.

A board spokesman admitted that a design team would not be appointed this month as planned because of the need for “very rigorous financial evaluation” of the bids by shortlisted architectural teams to build the hospital. It is now planned to appoint the design team in June.

The date of submission of a planning application has been put back, from this autumn to February 2015.

The transfer of services from the existing three children’s hospitals in Dublin to the new hospital would start as scheduled “at the end of 2018”, the spokesman said.

The board was concerned that tender documents looked at ways to ensure the project was delivered as quickly as possible and contained the required flexibility, he said.

“It is essential to get the detail right now at project planning stage,” he added, “so as to minimise problems later in the project when it is on site [subject to planning permission].”

Clarify timeframe
Fianna Fáil chief whip Seán Ó Fearghail, in the Dáil yesterday, called on Minister for Health James Reilly to clarify the timeframe for the delivery of the new hospital.

“The new national children’s hospital has been plagued by delays for years and I am extremely concerned that the new timeline for delivery of the hospital on the site of St James’s Hospital may not now be met.”

Last February, Dr Reilly said the aim was to have the site at St James’s Hospital cleared by the end of this year, to have a planning decision and for construction to get under way in spring 2015 and to begin transition of services at the end of 2018.