Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns has called on the Taoiseach to urgently clarify if it is still official government policy to co-locate the Rotunda with Connolly Hospital, as envisaged in the 2016 National Maternity Strategy.<\/p>\n
Deputy Cairns said:<\/p>\n
\u201cA \u20ac100 million critical care unit at the Rotunda Hospital was supposed to be a gamechanger for women and babies. Instead, staff at Ireland\u2019s largest and oldest maternity hospital have been left shocked after planning permission for this extension was turned down following an appeal to An Comisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving personally visited the Rotunda yesterday, it is difficult to comprehend how anyone could walk into the existing Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and deny that babies, parents and staff need more space.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncredibly, the appeals board said the unit did not represent \u2018an overwhelming public benefit to justify the degree of heritage harm identified\u2019. On what planet is the treatment of premature babies not an overwhelming public benefit?<\/p>\n
\u201cSignificantly, the commission did not agree with its own inspector\u2019s conclusion that the proposal represented an overwhelming public benefit sufficient to justify the degree of heritage harm identified. This was based on its understanding that it remained government policy to co-locate the Rotunda Hospital in the medium to longer term with Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, listening to the Minister for Health on RT\u00c9 radio this morning, this is clearly not the case anymore and it seems the co-location plan has been quietly dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven that the commission\u2019s decision is partially based on outdated information, it is hard to understand why the government did not intervene earlier in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all agree that co-location is best practice for any maternity hospital and that the Rotunda\u2019s current partnership with the Mater is working well and should now be formalised.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, for this to happen, the government must unequivocally confirm that co-location with Connolly Hospital is not going ahead \u2013 something the Taoiseach failed to do when I asked him this question in the D\u00e1il today.\u201d<\/p>\n
February 17, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns has called on the Taoiseach to urgently clarify if it is still official government policy to co-locate the Rotunda with Connolly Hospital, as envisaged in the 2016 National Maternity Strategy. Deputy Cairns said: \u201cA \u20ac100 million critical care unit at the Rotunda Hospital was supposed to be a gamechanger for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,400,807,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-holly-cairns","category-maternity","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n