Dublin's leading teaching hospitals are competing for a €500 million project - the new centre for specialised child services, writes Martin Wall.
Over the next week or so most of the main Dublin adult teaching hospitals will make formal presentations to a team of senior health service officials in a bid to become the new national centre for specialised services for children.
For the hospitals, the project is hugely prestigious - at a cost of more than €500 million, it will be the most expensive healthcare development in the history of the State, offering state-of-the-art technology and facilities. For parents in Dublin and surrounding areas the decision will also be very important as the chosen centre will be the only hospital in the capital providing inpatient services for children.
A report drawn up by consultants McKinsey in January said that Ireland could only support one world class tertiary centre providing complex, multi-disciplinary care. It proposed that general paediatric hospital services for Dublin should also be based on the new site.
The new report effectively threw up in the air all previous plans for the development of paediatric hospital services.
Up to then, it had been envisaged that the country's largest children's hospital, Our Lady's in Crumlin, would be rebuilt, probably on a new greenfield site. Temple Street hospital was also to move - to a new development on the Mater hospital campus.
However the McKinsey findings opened the door to all the main adult teaching hospitals and even the private sector to pitch for the provision of the facility.
In February, the Health Service Executive (HSE) gave the adult hospitals in Dublin a fortnight to express an interest in the project. It asked them to outline where they would envisage the new facility being built. It also asked for details of the ownership of the land involved and, for example, on whether rezoning would be required.
By the deadline at least five Dublin teaching hospitals had expressed an interest. The private sector Beacon Hospital group also said it wanted to be considered.
McKinsey recommended that the new children's hospital be "co-located" with an adult facility. They defined this variously as being adjacent to an adult hospital or within practical walking distance of one.
However, in public at least, no one has definitively set out what the HSE/Department of Health assessment team will consider to be "practical walking distance". There has been increasing speculation about the emergence of the 70-acre Grangegorman site as a possible location. This site is about 15 minutes walk from the Mater in north Dublin. The site is also already earmarked as the new centralised campus for the Dublin Institute of Technology.
Tallaght hospital will today formally announce its bid for the project. It will point out that the existing National Children's Hospital, formerly in Harcourt Street, is already based there, providing a depth of paediatric expertise.
St James's Hospital has confirmed that it made a bid for the project. It is already a large medical campus with a variety of facilities and disciplines.
The Mater hospital bid is being backed by Temple Street and the Rotunda hospitals. The Mater says it already has a cleared site that would allow for a speedy delivery of the project.
Beaumont hospital said in recent weeks that it would be bidding for the project. It is expected to seek to have the facility on its existing campus. The hospital already houses a number of national specialities.
St Vincent's hospital confirmed last night it was interested in the project. It currently has no paediatric services but there have been proposals that the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street could be relocated to its campus.