Hospital Facilities
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-17
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Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City

I thank Deputy Gannon for the opportunity to address the need for a new critical care wing at the Rotunda Hospital. I am taking this matter on behalf of Minister for Health, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. The Government is committed to driving improvements and continued investment in the Rotunda Hospital. Providing the highest possible standard of care at the Rotunda campus is a priority for the Minister for Health. This includes ongoing capital developments at the site to manage the current and future needs of women and babies.
The Rotunda Hospital is one of the busiest maternity hospitals in Europe. More than 8,600 babies were delivered there in 2025, and more than 1,300 babies were cared for in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, NICU. The Rotunda Hospital provides 25% of the neonatal care capacity in the State. This includes the most critically ill babies, many of whom must be transferred from other hospitals to receive the specialist care they need.
The planned critical care wing at Parnell Square west is critical to provide essential upgrades to the existing Rotunda campus to meet high-priority clinical needs. The new wing would provide additional NICU capacity, single-room beds and a new theatre. This development would increase capacity at the hospital to provide safe and appropriate care for an increasing number of presentations, including the most critically ill babies. It would address the space shortages that restrict our capacity to deliver critical services to very sick babies and wrap-around supports to their mothers and fathers.
In this context, the decision of An Coimisiún Pleanála to overturn the position of Dublin City Council and refuse planning permission for this urgent, critically needed expansion is deeply disappointing, particularly when we have had positive decisions accepting the public benefit of the development all the way through the process. Our priority now is to ensure the delivery of appropriate neonatal expansion at the Rotunda Hospital as quickly as possible. The Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, will meet with the master of the Rotunda, Professor Sean Daly, in the next two weeks once he has had an opportunity to consider all options available to him, as he is the applicant for planning.
The Minister will also continue to work with the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, Deputy Chambers, to ensure that health infrastructure is fully recognised as critical infrastructure within the forthcoming reforms arising from the Accelerating Infrastructure - Report and Action Plan. We are committed to providing support for the hospital in meeting the current and future needs of women and babies at the current Rotunda site.
The hospital budget has increased to €109 million in 2025. This is an increase of 47%, or €35 million, since 2020. The HSE purchased an additional building, Hampson House, to extend capacity, which officially opened in January 2025. Over 100,000 outpatient and ambulatory patients are expected to attend annually. A range of service improvements are also being driven by the hospital and through the national maternity strategy.
The Minister for Health visited the Rotunda in June 2025 to launch a new neonatal intensive care unit, NICU, resource for parents, and again in January this year to welcome a new foetal surgery service. Following Government investment, the Rotunda has also been working closely with hospitals across Dublin to establish a new community post-natal hub service for women and infants following birth, which is being launched next week. We will continue to support the Rotunda with these initiatives as it strives to meet the needs of the women, infants and families it serves.

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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