Phoenix Children's Hospital Ireland

2006–2012: the Mater site

Later in 2006, a Health Service Executive taskforce selected the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in north central Dublin as the location of the future hospital.^[1] The selection process was criticised by both the National Children's Hospital and by Our Lady's Children's Hospital, as well as patient interest groups and one of the paediatricians who contributed to the McKinsey report.^[3] In 2007 the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, established a National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) to oversee the project.^[1] The chairman of the board, Philip Lynch, resigned unexpectedly in October 2010 citing "significant and fundamental differences" with Harney over the chosen location of the hospital, as well as over funding arrangements and governance.^[4] Lynch had met with the property developer Noel Smyth and with staff from Our Lady's Children's Hospital and had come to favour an alternative plan, whereby the hospital would be built on greenfield land owned by Smyth in Newlands Cross outside central Dublin.^[5] Harney announced that she had requested Lynch's resignation, stating that "it is not in the remit of the Development Board to revisit the Government decision taken on the location of the new hospital".^[4] Lynch was replaced as chairman of the NPHDB by the businessman John Gallagher, who himself resigned only months later in March 2011, saying that he "no longer feels that he has the mandate to continue with his original remit to build the hospital at the Mater site", since the new Minister for Health, James Reilly, had publicly considered reviewing the decision to locate the new hospital there.^[6]

Reilly went on to assemble an independent group of international experts to review the process; it concluded in July 2011 that the Mater site remained the best of the available options,^[7] and the NPHDB formally applied for planning permission on 20 July, naming the project as the "Children's Hospital of Ireland".^[8] The application was contested and went through an appeals process. In February 2012, An Bord Pleanála announced that it had refused permission for the project, stating in its decision that "by reason of its height, scale, form and mass, located on this elevated site, [the hospital] would result in a dominant, visually incongruous structure and would have a profound negative impact on the appearance and visual amenity of the city skyline," as well as constituting overdevelopment of the Mater campus and detracting from the historic character of the surrounding area.^[8]

2012–present: the St James's site

In the wake of the refusal of planning permission, Reilly tasked another review group (led by the businessman Frank Dolphin) to determine other options for the new hospital.^[9] The report proposed nine assessment criteria for making a decision on the best location and model.^[2] Prioritising colocation with an existing adult teaching hospital – and, ideally, "trilocation" with a maternity hospital as well – the group sought submissions from six adult hospitals within Dublin.^[9] It received proposals from the Mater (revised from the previous project that had been rejected), Beaumont Hospital, St James's Hospital, Tallaght Hospital, and Connolly Hospital, as well as a proposal from the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital that was backed by St James's.^[9] St Vincent's University Hospital declined to participate.^[9] The group also received, but chose to exclude, a number of unsolicited site offers that were not linked to a Dublin teaching hospital.^[9] The report, published in June 2012, did not rank options but rather listed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with each proposal, with the final decision being left to the government.