asked the Minister for Health if, in view of the fact that Tallaght, County Dublin, will not be provided with a hospital until 1992, he will consider providing a 24-hour accident centre there as an interim measure.

The provision of an accident centre of the type suggested by the Deputy would require back-up services which are only available in an acute hospital setting. It would not, therefore, be feasible to establish such a centre in Tallaght pending the provision of the new hospital there.

The Minister has not given a satisfactory reply. Is he aware of the enormous problems in this new city of 75,000 people due to the lack of private and public telephones? Indeed, public telephones are now being withdrawn from the area and there is great difficulty in contacting ambulances in emergencies. Is the Minister satisfied that he is fulfilling his responsibility to Tallaght over the next seven years until a hospital is provided?

The Government intend to go ahead as quickly as possible with the construction of the new hospital in Tallaght as one of the six major general hospitals serving the Dublin area. The architectural competition has been completed in relation to the construction of the hospital and the planning board have been doing excellent work. The results of the architectural competition will be known in July or August of this year and I hope to see the first phase of this hospital built within a few years. Meanwhile, emergency accident provision for the area will have to be dealt with by the rota of other Dublin hospitals such as Saint James's or the Children's Hospital in relation to accidents involving children. The new hospital will be a very big facility, it will have 450 beds and will take a number of years to build and be fully operational.

Without going into the whole complexity of major and complex operation rooms and all the detailed facilities which I accept are part of the panoply of a major hospital, I should like the Minister to look into the question of providing at least a basic first aid facility there which could conceivably save lives. Simple medical procedures could be carried out on the spot although it would not cater for badly injured or seriously ill people.

I am anxious to provide, as quickly as possible, temporary out-patient facilities at Tallaght. These would be provided by the Meath, Adelaide and the National Children's Hospital liaison committee. A casualty out-patient facility is an impossibility because if a person comes in with a suspected broken finger, basic radiology facilities would have to be provided to carry out an X-ray and that would mean providing a consultant also. Otherwise, you would be providing a GP service only which would not be satisfactory. A casualty unit would have to be staffed 24 hours a day which would involve employing nurses and so on. Inevitably, we would also have to provide an ambulance for moving people to other hospitals in the event of a serious accident. I do not think the proposition is feasible.

I am sure the Minister is aware of the rapidity with which the population is growing in Tallaght. There will be 100,000 people there by the time the new hospital is scheduled to be completed in 1992. The Minister said he hoped to speed up the building of the hospital. Could he say when he expects the first stage of the hospital to be completed and if it will be in a shorter period than seven years assuming that the first stage will be able to provide a temporary accident centre?

The architectural competition results will be out in July or August and it will take at least three years to have the hospital under way. One cannot spend something in the region of £70 million without a time span of three years. The hospital board were appointed in 1981 to plan, build, equip and commission the hospital and it took a couple of years to get the agreement of the planning brief for the hospital. However, as the Deputy knows, it takes three or four years to build a hospital.

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