I worked in one of the existing children's hospitals for 4 years and talked to hundreds of parents throughout that. I can safely say that for the mother who left Donegal at 4:30am to make an outpatient appointment in our hospital, the extra 30+minutes it would take to get to the Mater does make a huge difference. I can safely say that for my girlfriends family who recently had to bring their son up Crumlin (from beside Listowel amusingly enough) for outpatient appointments, not spending another 40+minutes each way stuck in traffic did make a huge difference.

If you believe parents of sick children care about "meeting friends for lunch, taking breaks from the hospital and taking their sick kids on little excursions" over access, facilities and quality of life at the hospital (i.e. parking, facilities for parents/families to sleep, green space etc) then you're sadly, terribly, mistaken.

That pompous hairy arse Reilly called a so-called review that did not have within its terms of reference a review of the location, just of the fitness of purpose of the proposed building. He was warned about likely An Bord Pleanala objections and yet pursued a stupid path.

It was an obvious politically motivated mindless decision: Harney's sop to Ahern. You had he Bertie Bowl and now you have the Bertie Sick Bowl.

Among many other lessons that will not be learned from this disaster is that it is a classic example of sunk cost fallacy.

Well perhaps but I'm speaking from my own experience, where pretending to have some sort of semi-normal life was very important for the patient and the heavily stressed relatives.

But yeah depends on how sick etc. and everyone is different.

If you were building a fucking bungalow you would talk to planners before you lifted a finger to see what they make of your back of napkin sketches. This stinks, though I think it is the right decision.

Did nobody really bother to see what the planners thought, or did they put their hands over their ears and assume it was just too big to fail?

did anyone champion this other than Bertie?
Bertie wanted something for his constituency.
nobody appears to know where to fingerpoint.
I point the finger at the autocratic fucktard.

Bertie wanted it, Harney fully supported it. Other than that, there was never much public or clinical backing for the NCH at the Mater.


However, once Drumm became CEO of the HSE he was suddenly a huge proponent of the NCH at the Mater as was Karl Anderson.

Funny what giving someone a job can do to change their strongly held opinions.

Each and every report was biased from its inception for a variety of reasons unfortunately. After €35m on planning and consultancy, we still don't truly know the costs, benefits and drawbacks of placing the NCH at several types of locations in Dublin.

Haven't been following this closely enough but do I get the impression that they used the new Strategic Infrastructure process which bypasses the councils as planning authority and goes straight to ABP? Do I guess that they carried over the no-lobbying process around ABP into this expanded role? i.e. not only is there no mechanism for pre-decision consultations but it might even be illegal.
Just speculation on my part - anyone know?

here are some of the highlights of the inspectors report



anyone ever get down the M1 in 38 mins?

Surely they would have hired planning consultants after an open competition for tender, and would probably have had to draft an Environmental Impact Assessment of some description. I haven't a clue who they hired though.

Perhaps their contribution was as simple as:
Children's hospital committee: We've saved you the hassle and drafted a visual impact report for you. Sign here please
Planning Consultant: No problemo. Can I have my fee now?

AFAIK Murray O'Laoire Architect won the lead contract ....... and promptly went bankrupt
dont know who replaced them

Nobody brings a sick child up to Dublin from the country on the train. Just like people don't go to James' for their cancer treatment by public transport.

Besides which, James' is a short hop on the Luas from Heuston and Connelly...

James' would seem to be the ideal location transport wise - it is not a million miles away from Crumlin Children's (so close in fact that one wonders if they could be administratively considered co-located...). On the other hand, the Coombe is moving out to Tallaght and one of the pre-reqs of the new site was supposed to be that it was co-located with a maternity hospital...

Probably not. But if you've a sick kid in a hospital & your visiting them daily, they might not drive up every day, not if one parent has to get to work every day, then the other has to get in to visit.

No major hospital in Dublin should be more than one-hop via public transport from a mainline station like Heuston or Connelly. If a hospital doesn't have plentiful & free car parking, which no hospital in Dublin has; then it needs to have excellent & short public transport links.

Ultimately for parents the problem is not where the hospital is, within certain limits, but the quality of care their child gets, & how quickly they get it.

Right now we will have the worst of all worlds, a slow, undersized & half-assed childrens hospital, with no critical element done well. Not well staffed, not easily accessed & undersized. There's acres of land out where the Bertie bowl was originally intended to be built, its off the M50, its relatively easily accessible. I don't understand why the Dail can't pass a bill designating a part of the area a 'special development zone' & just exclude it from regular planning laws & just get the fucking hospital built

I listened to the clowns waffling about how it shouldn't be a big deal to just change the original plans & reduce it from a 5xx room building to a 4xx room building & how it was no big deal Now, as an Engineer, I have a pretty low opinion of architechs, but even I know that reducing a building plan by 20% takes a little more than a few hours, & the idea that something that previously took a few years can now be done in a couple of months a gigantic pile of shit

I'm sick of hearing how the Democratic process must be observed, when we all know that ABP was set up to allow the TDs & councillors to fuck about with the process while appearing to keep their hands clean. ABP is a bunch of asshole marionets who need to be told what the desired result is before they can make a decision

They refused it because it would "negatively impact on the skyline of Dublin"...........!

WOW


+1

Why is everyone on about traffic & trains? It got rejected because the planners dont like how it will look

this NCH has already cost the state 35m . no doubt in over the top consultancy fees for muppets who deliver shag-all.

I'm all for a NCH, but wasting 35m before a sod is overturned is a fucking scandal, the HSE has a habit of paying large euros to professional consultants as in the PPARS scam.

what could we have got for 35m?
35m could fund 350 small business ideas through enterprise ireland or 10 big disruptive industrial/academic research projects through SFI, an extra 10 yoyos in everyone's back pocket. It probably cost each family 50 quid, its like handing the parasites a large birthday gift.

ABP should be part of the design process and their guidelines should be known by the so-called professional bodies. Everyone involved in this scam should be liable for failing to comply with ABP guidelines.

Wasnt NAMA-cheerleader Harry Crosbie the developer involved in building this NCH?

Who told them to turn the application down? Perhaps it was FF?