2026-02-12

Before we move to Other Members' Questions, I have a message to welcome the guests from Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí in Tralee. They are guests of Deputy Pa Daly but I am reliably informed the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan's wife is a teacher there. They are very welcome.

I want to raise the issue of the national development plan and, in particular, health infrastructure and the delivery of it under the national development plan. For many of the Members in this House who support the Government each week, we want to know that our colleagues in Cabinet are making the national development plan a priority and that those projects within it are a priority. However, more importantly, we want to know that the mechanisms are put in place to ensure the timely delivery of critical infrastructure. I welcome the Minister for Health's recent publication of the sectoral plan which allocated almost €10 billion to the area. That is the most amount ever recorded for the area of health. I appreciate that will amount to €1.5 billion alone in 2026. The way we will judge the performance of the people we support in here will be on the delivery of projects and the way we will be judged will be on the delivery of specific projects in each of our constituencies. I want to raise some of those projects with the Tánaiste because that is how the Government will be judged. Long-standing projects include Beaumont Hospital, the Finglas primary care centre, Teach An Saol in Ballymun, which I know the Tánaiste has visited, and the redevelopment of the National Orthopaedic Hospital at Cappagh. The €30 million allocated for Beaumont Hospital was very welcome and I know there are colleagues in the House, like Deputy Ó Muirí, Deputy Heneghan and my party colleague, Deputy Brabazon, who are working with the hospital to ensure the 20-bed cystic fibrosis unit is delivered later this year and that the 95-bed inpatient unit and the new emergency department are delivered. We want to see clear timelines for those projects. As we have learned, being in the capital plan alone is not enough. I also want to raise the issue of the primary care centre in Finglas which has been bogged down in a lot of planning over time. However, we are now getting to the point where enabling works, like the moving of pitches to facilitate new sports facilities as part of the primary care centre and so on, are all starting. Again, we want to make sure the HSE prioritises that project. Teach An Saol, which the Tánaiste has visited, is a centre for those with acquired brain injuries. We had a very welcome visit from Bernard Gloster and we have a commitment that the project is now at design and tender stage. We hope that will be concluded by the summer of this year and that we will move to have a new facility where the new national nuero team will also be in place. However, clear timelines are needed on that too. Anyone who has visited Cappagh Hospital - I visited it with the Tánaiste's predecessor, Leo Varadkar - will know that the old nightingale wards are awaiting replacement. There is a master plan that is crying out for investment. I would like to see more in the capital plan when it is published, which I believe may happen in the next number of weeks. We want to see clear timelines and we need delivery. That is in every constituency across the country.

I thank Deputy McAuliffe for raising this issue. All of us on these benches agree with him because, thankfully, we are now in a position where we can provide a significant level of capital funding. Roughly speaking, we are planning on spending €275 billion out to 2035. That is badly needed for housing, for the enabling infrastructure for housing and a growing population and for the delivery of modern public services, including in the area of health. I and my colleague the Minister, Deputy Chambers, agree with the Deputy. Alongside funding, the challenge now is going be making sure we cut through the red tape, bureaucracy, the bottlenecks, the gates, the stages, the external consultants and this, that and the other that have led us to a situation where big projects are taking far too long to deliver. That is not consequence free. It has a real impact in the Deputy's constituency, in my constituency and in constituencies across the country. In addition to the work that the Minister, Deputy Chambers, did in the context of the accelerating infrastructure task force, I am pleased to say that we are now seeing real delivery. There was a proposal before Cabinet this week that we estimate will cut around 20 weeks off the delivery of the projects by not having to go back to external consultants. I say that by way of both form and credibility in terms of Deputy McAuliffe's constituency action in relation to that. On health specifically, we are expecting the HSE capital plan to be published, as the Deputy rightly said, in the next number of weeks. The Minister for Health will keep in close contact with the Deputy in relation to that and with all of our Deputies across the Government benches too. The Deputy referenced a number of projects in relation to Beaumont Hospital, such as the cystic fibrosis facility, which, I know, is important to Deputies Ó Muirí and Heneghan too. This is a very important facility, and we all feel strongly about the extra bed capacity and the emergency department. Deputy McAuliffe also referenced Finglas primary care centre. My understanding is that the tenders for phase 1 have been received by the HSE, which expects a positive outcome on tender award over the coming weeks. Enabling works are now anticipated to commence on the site in the middle of this year, which will come as welcome relief after the long period for which the Deputy's community has been waiting for that facility. I am really pleased the Deputy mentioned the SAOL project. I have given a commitment to coming out - and I would be delighted to do it with the Deputy - to see that project. I feel very passionately about it. I have gotten to know those involved personally. My colleague and friend Councillor Gayle Ralph raised this matter with me as recently as last Saturday, but I would be very pleased to go out with the Deputy to visit SAOL and make sure we get this over the line. This is a chance to transform lives. A huge amount of work has been invested in this by SAOL but by the HSE. Bernard Gloster has been very committed to the project, as has Deputy McAuliffe. I am committed to working with the Deputy to try get it over the line very shortly.

The Tánaiste identified a particular matter there. For a long time when we had no money in the country, we had multistage processes to show that projects were progressing but they were not actually getting anywhere. We are now in a situation where we have plenty of money and where the multistage processes are delaying projects. That does not happen often. It is important to have public scrutiny of public money, but we need to see delivery. I do not doubt commitment of the Minister for Health on this. However, people at every level within the HSE need to know these projects are desperately needed because of the increase in our population and on foot of new and emerging needs. They are also desperately needed because Beaumont Hospital is over 40 years old. It was a state-of-the-art hospital when it was built, but it now needs critical investment. Equally, we have a desperate shortage of GPs in Finglas. GPs are an incredibly important in the context of people seeking to access healthcare. As a result of the demographics that obtain, Finglas is not as attractive as other areas where people might pay for private doctor visits. It is often entirely reliant on medical cards. That is all the more reason why the HSE should provide a primary care centre.

I do not disagree with anything Deputy McAuliffe said. It is now about delivery. The Minister for Health is very committed to it, as are the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, and the Government. We all identified in advance of the previous election that our challenged is to put the resources our country has to work in terms of getting these projects moving. There are encouraging signs in that regard. I have seen a level of focus and an appetite for this reform in the new infrastructure division of the Department of public expenditure and reform. The Deputy is right in that we have to translate this now to every level of the public service. I do not say that critically. We can have a policy but we need to make sure it is translated right down to the front line. We will be very eager to monitor that very closely with the Minister for Health and the HSE, and at the Cabinet committee on infrastructure delivery. This is a year in which we will see good progress for Finglas in terms of the primary care centre. We are all very committed to Beaumont Hospital. We will see a number of projects coming forward, but, in fairness to the HSE, I want to await the capital plan. I am always conscious that these projects being delivered on live hospital sites presents extra complexity, which is something the HSE is factoring in. I will keep in touch with the Deputy on this matter in the coming weeks.