A brief account of the five-stage process that led to the selection of the Mater Hospital as the site for the new national children's hospital.
• Submissions were sought from the six adult academic teaching hospitals in Dublin including Beaumont, the Mater, St James's, St Vincent's, Tallaght and Blanchardstown.
• Proposals were also received from private organisations. The Coombe Women's Hospital also asked to be considered.
• Twenty-two possible sites were identified by the hospitals themselves, local authorities, the Office of Public Works and private operators. These included sites at Newlands Cross, the site of the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, the Mountjoy prison site, Cherry Orchard Hospital, St Ita's Hospital at Portrane, St Brendan's Hospital at Grangegorman, and St Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, among others.
• Patients' representatives, the existing children's hospitals, and Dublin's three maternity hospitals were consulted.
• The Small Area Health Research Unit in Trinity College Dublin was commissioned to undertake a study to identify travel times by public and private transport, for both national and local catchment populations, to the sites proposed.
Site selection: five-stage process
Stage 1
Given that experts had recommended the new hospital be co-located with an adult teaching hospital, greenfield sites were ruled out. These included sites offered by private developers such as Noel Smyth.
Stage 2
The taskforce looked at the size of sites to see if they could accommodate a children's hospital, a 25,000sq m maternity hospital, and have capacity for further expansion. All six Dublin teaching hospitals met these criteria.
Stage 3
There were site visits and clarification meetings.
Stage 4
The depth of existing specialities within each of the six main Dublin hospitals was looked at, as well as their existing linkages with paediatric hospitals and their consultant staffing levels.
Stage 5
The options were narrowed down. It was decided Tallaght, St Vincent's and Blanchardstown hospitals did not have the breadth of services required, eg neurosurgery, cardiothoracic surgery, burns, spinal injuries. Beaumont, St James's and the Mater were looked at in terms of ease of access. St James's and the Mater were easiest to get to. The St James's site was bigger but it would take longer to develop a hospital there and it would cost more. So the Mater site was chosen.
... Eithne Donnellan