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

Holly Cairns (SD), Cork South-West

The Taoiseach says colocation between the Rotunda and the Mater is there in essence. Yes, I agree with him and everyone can see that. The problem the Taoiseach is talking around is that it is not there in reality in the Government's maternity strategy and An Coimisiún Pleanála brought that into its decision-making process. Part of the reason it gave when balancing it with the cultural heritage of the area was that this was not the long-term plan. However, the long-term plan has changed. The Government failed to acknowledge that, even five months ago when the appeal was put in. The Minister came out on the radio this morning and basically clarified that situation five months later.
Now, the decision has been made. There will be a massive delay in this extension happening no matter what and the Government now needs to at least take responsibility for that and admit it was the Government's strategy that misled An Coimisiún Pleanála into making this decision. That is the very least the Government could do when the delay is considered.
At the moment - I do not know how to emphasise this enough - there are 22 postnatal women sharing one bathroom. There is one bathroom between 22 women who have just given birth. All of those intensive care units for tiny premature babies are jammed into a room. There is not room for the two parents to go into see their baby at one time. This will go on even longer because the Government did not inform An Coimisiún Pleanála that the plan to colocate has changed.

---

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