{"id":363402,"date":"2026-03-02T04:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/363402\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T04:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:22:08","slug":"coalition-asked-to-clarify-if-rotunda-maternity-hospital-will-remain-in-dublin-city-centre-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/363402\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalition asked to clarify if Rotunda maternity hospital will remain in Dublin city centre \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government is being asked to clarify if the Rotunda maternity hospital <\/a>will remain in Dublin city centre in the foreseeable future, as part of a Labour plan to encourage the national planning body to reconsider a controversial appeal against a new critical care unit. <\/p>\n

It emerged last month that An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la had struck down plans for a \u20ac100 million extension of the Rotunda Hospital <\/a>intended to care for critically ill women and infants.<\/p>\n

The decision came after the planning commission agreed with objectors that the critical care unit would fail to protect the \u201cexisting architectural and civic design character of the site, or Parnell Square generally\u201d.<\/p>\n

The hospital board had claimed that the development did not represent \u201can overwhelming public benefit sufficient to justify the degree of heritage harm identified\u201d. The planning commission had noted in its decision that Government policy was to co-locate the Rotunda with Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown in the medium term. <\/p>\n

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill had suggested last month that it was \u201cdifficult\u201d to see the Rotunda <\/a>co-locating with Connolly hospital in the short term. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Rotunda works well with the Mater, and of all of the maternity hospitals, it\u2019s the one that I would very seriously have to be convinced a different path is appropriate than the one it currently has,\u201d she had said. <\/p>\n

Carroll MacNeill had said that if the Rotunda was relocated, the time it would take to do that \u201cwould by far exceed the delivery time of this new critical care unit, which is needed now\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, the Government has declined to confirm if it has fully abandoned plans to move the maternity hospital. <\/p>\n

Labour TD Marie Sherlock is bringing forward a Bill this week that would seek to force the Government to make a statement on whether or not the Rotunda will be relocated. The same Bill would give the planning commission the right to decide to reopen and reconsider the appeal against the critical care unit, on the basis of the Government\u2019s position. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the prospect of any long and drawn-out fresh planning process or judicial review is appalling for the hospital, given that the need for a new critical care wing has been spoken about for many years. So the Bill aims to bring a speedy resolution, while still maintaining the independence of An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la,\u201d said Sherlock. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government is being asked to clarify if the Rotunda maternity hospital will remain in Dublin city centre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,44157,18,13,14,6,789,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-363402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-demonstration","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-horizontal","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116157673847513118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}