THE MATER hospital in Dublin has secured final planning permission to develop an adult hospital on the current Mater site, separately from the future development of a new national children's hospital.
The hospital development company has also won its appeal to An Bord Pleanála to reduce contribution to the development of the new Metro North rail service from almost €1 million, to just over €250,000.
The company, Mater Campus Hospital Development Ltd, now has the planning approval required to go ahead with the development of the adult hospital as a stand alone unit.
However, it has decided to make a further application to Dublin City Council for additional facilities.
This application will be made to the council within weeks, a spokeswoman for the company said yesterday, and will include plans for a nine-storey building.
Permission for the redevelopment of the hospital has been granted on several previous occasions. However, the plans have never come to fruition because of changes in government policy. In January 2004, permission was granted for the upgrade and extension of the mid-19th century building, the demolition of many 20th century structures and the relocation of Temple Street children's hospital to a new building on the Mater campus.
The hospital then sought a larger development than originally proposed and this was granted in July 2005.
However, in 2006 the government decided to "decouple" the two projects and redevelop the Mater adult hospital separately to the construction of a new national children's hospital, although the HSE and Minister for Health Mary Harney maintain that the children's hospital will still be built on the Mater site.
This involved the submission of a further planning application which would omit the children's hospital facilities from the development and seek additional space for the adult hospital (approximately 11,000sq m) and the reduction in the number of car-parking spaces from 800 to 306.
This proposal was granted planning permission by Dublin City Council last November. The council, however, attached a number of conditions, two of which related to the financial contributions required by the hospital. Both of these were appealed to An Bord Pleanála by the Mater development company.
The council had levied a standard development contribution of €5.428 million.
The company did not contest the levying of this contribution as it is a standard condition in relation to any large development, however, it said the council's mathematical calculation had been inaccurate and sought to have it reduced to €5.394 million.
The company also sought a reduction in the levy in relation to the metro, however, it had a different basis for this claim and the reduction sought was proportionately much larger.
The council imposes a levy on new developments which will be within 1km of Metro North. In relation to the hospital, it calculated this levy at €955,283.70. However, the company argued that the council misapplied the levy as it had not existed when the original planning permission was granted in 2004.
Therefore, the company said, the levy should only be calculated on the 11,000sq m sought in the most recent application and should be calculated at €250,378.11.
An Bord Pleanála has ruled in favour of the Mater company stating that the council "had not properly applied the terms of the relevant contribution schemes".
The conditions have now been amended and final permission granted to the development.
The company hopes to seek tenders for the construction of the new hospital before the end of this year, however, it said it will first make a supplementary application for additional facilities.
