Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-17
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

-----at the decision of An Coimisiún Pleanála to overturn the position of Dublin City Council and, indeed, its own recommendation from its own planning inspector who recommended that the proposed critical care wing at the Rotunda should go ahead. I would add that it is deeply disappointing. The Minister this morning met with the regional clinical director and also the regional executive officer. The HSE will be meeting with the master of the Rotunda to review the next steps and all the plans pertaining to the Rotunda, the Mater and, of course, Connolly hospital.
The Deputy is correct. The interview this morning with the person who objected on behalf of Dublin Civic Trust was interesting. When they were pressed on whether they would object again if that particular dimension - the 2016 strategy - was removed, there was no commitment not to object again. There are no guarantees either way because other factors were taken into account.
The issue from a planning perspective is that irrespective of what happens in the long term, the critical care unit is needed now.
It is an immediate need for babies who require intensive care of that kind. About 20% of specialised neonatal care is in the Rotunda, so it is a national facility. It is not just a regional facility from that perspective. Huge numbers of women go to the Rotunda, so it is a critical resource for us.
There is an issue in terms of the prioritisation of the protection of human life over the heritage considerations. Invariably what tends to happen is that people try to marry, and do the very best they can to harmonise, developments like this. Let us not forget the Rotunda is part of the heritage as well. Are we suggesting it stands still as a building or never moves in any direction or never gets expanded? We recently opened Hampson House. I presume Deputy Bacik is familiar with that outpatient facility near O'Connell Street. It is a fantastic facility. This facilitated and opened up the opportunity to do this development. There were people working where space has now been created for the critical care wing, or part of it anyway. From our perspective, the Minister will work with all involved. The master did seek to engage with people on the ground and with Dublin Civic Trust and others. That was not, to my understanding, taken up at that particular time.
In terms of maternity development more generally, there are a number of maternity hospitals in Dublin and it is a fact that over the past 30 years or longer, we have not managed, through institutional and other issues, to get maternity hospitals located in one given site. Holles Street hospital is now moving to St. Vincent's hospital after a long row in here and argy-bargy about this, that and the other, a lot of it in my view not of substance and, quite frankly, it did not put women first. People were more worried about conspiracies in the Vatican, in my view, than women's health but there we are. Cork managed to do it. We should review the Rotunda in terms of what should happen there in the long term as well. That is something the Minister will deal with fairly quickly.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-17