Madam, - When - not if - the process leading to the decision to place the new National Children's Hospital on the Mater site is eventually subjected to a judicial-type review or a rigorous academic study, it will be seen to have been fundamentally flawed. Fintan O'Toole (Opinion, March 20th), characteristically succinct and direct, highlighted the limited number of the glaring faults which space permitted him.
People involved, even in minor voluntary lay capacities, in the provision of children's hospital healthcare, even those who are partisan (as this writer unashamedly is for Tallaght), welcomed the opportunity offered by the concept of a unified approach to the issue. We did so precisely because we have sweated blood in a seemingly endless series of meetings and manoeuvres, lasting over years, to achieve quite small advances, acquire relatively tiny funds, get appointments of staff, and secure the execution of promises within a Byzantine system whose configuration and procedures owe more to historical circumstances than to reason.
Having witnessed the emergence of the Ballymun housing project in the 1960s, I am convinced that this project will be the Ballymun of the early 21st century. That too was a quick-fix, high-rise, high-cost "solution" - driven unilaterally by a strong personality who had almost absolute power within the relevant administrative sub-fiefdom. Within months of the first tenancies, Dublin City Council (myself included) heard from mothers how impossible it was to rear their families in buildings which had been "planned" without practical consultation with the prospective users. It took a generation of official denial and shoulder-shrugging before that fatally flawed project began to be dismantled. And who suffered the most? The children.
As a clinical paediatrician in Crumlin has pointed out publicly, the people who are "planning" this project will be long gone and out of harm's or blame's way when staff, parents and the children are imprisoned in the consequences of their blunders, maybe for decades.
The Government has a simple choice. It can have the courage to freeze (not necessarily cancel), the current process, call in a real international group, have genuinely inclusive consultation with the people involved on the ground, and carry out an objective, socio-demographic analysis of future needs. Alternatively, it can "carry on regardless" (the slapstick film reference is deliberate).
A handful of votes can decide the destination of the last seat in each constituency at the next election. A handful of seats will decide the identity of the next government. This should not have been a "political" issue but its mishandling has ensured that it now is. Regrettably - and I write as one who has known and worked with very fine men and women of all parties - the somersaults, obfuscations and contradictions on this issue have reduced the credibility of the Government parties almost to zero.
Those of your readers who have an interest in the healthcare of real children and adolescents must confront the reality that only they can now freeze a project around which, at the very least, major alarm bells are ringing. That means not waiting for somebody else to do something, but, as citizens, ensuring that they and as many of their acquaintances as possible vote against this madness. - Yours, etc,
MAURICE O'CONNELL, Tralee, Co Kerry.
Madam, - The decision to allow Ikea to build a 30,000-square-metre superstore in Ballymun has been referred to An Bord Pleanála by, among others, the National Roads Authority. The NRA believe that the large store with its 1,527 car parking spaces will lead to traffic congestion on the M50, M1 and surrounding area, which could entirely negate the benefits of the €1 billion M50 upgrade.
Meanwhile, the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health and Children are planning to build a €500 million National Children's Hospital of at least 100,000 square metres in a cramped inner-city site, with underdeveloped road infrastructure, where access and parking are already difficult. However, there are, apparently, no plans to explore the impact of this new development on traffic flow and access in the area.
It would, of course, be very frustrating to be caught in a traffic jam while trying to buy a new dining-room suite. However, a traffic jam while bringing a sick child to hospital might well have life-and-death consequences.
Surely our sick children are worthy of at least as much consideration as flat-packed Swedish furniture? - Yours, etc,
RAY MARTIN, Wilfield Park, Dublin 4.