With every passing day, the scandal surrounding the development of the national children’s hospital grows deeper. The only thing that is absolutely certain at this point is that all of it could have been avoided.

In 2016, Dr. Jimmy Sheehan, Ireland's leading hospital developer with six decades of experience in delivering world class health projects, in conjunction with Dr. Finn Breathnach, our premier paediatric oncologist, told the Oireachtas health committee that opting for the St. James's site would lead to catastrophic cost overruns. I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group presented this information in a Private Members' motion on 29 March 2017, a full month before the Government signed off on the first part of the contract. Unfortunately, the Taoiseach and his Government chose to listen to an inexperienced Minister who did not have six days' work experience in the Department of Health instead of listening to the experience of a professional hospital developer and a medical man of some renown with six decades of experience.

Every concern Dr. Sheehan, the parents and everybody else raised in 2016 has now come to pass. He has been ignored and sidelined, as was the Connolly for Kids campaign, but above all the parents of the most sick children, the Jack and Jill Foundation, Dr. Róisín Healy and many others repeatedly told the Government about inevitable access difficulties to the site. Not only was the Government told but every Member in this House who cared to listen was told. One would think that having accurately predicted both the cost overruns and the lack of capacity at the site, which we visited last week – it is nothing but a big black hole – that Dr. Sheehan and his colleagues would be welcomed with open arms and asked for their advice on how to proceed, especially now that the company, BAM, has offered to withdraw from the project and go back into negotiations, which I welcome, yet that has not happened. The Government seems determined not to learn from past mistakes. If the Taoiseach wants to talk about yarns, that is the yarn that will be told about him.

Two weeks ago, I wrote to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health asking it to invite Dr. Sheehan and his colleagues back in to engage with the committee on possible solutions. Now is the opportunity for that. The committee rejected the suggestion, which appalled me, and gave the extraordinary reason that it had already heard what they had to say in 2016, which has now proven to be true, and we are now in a hole.

Can the Taoiseach believe that the committee objected and refused, as if nothing had changed or happened in the meantime? This beggars belief. It is some yarn.

Two years ago, the Connolly for Kids group wrote to the Taoiseach personally, as it had to the previous Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, and handed in some 60,000 signatures expressing concern but it was not listened to. The group did not even get a reply from the Taoiseach himself and received a one-line reply from former Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny.

I have worked closely with Dr. Sheehan for a number of years on this issue. He is clear that €63 million in cost savings could be made with respect to the proposed underground car park for St. James's alone. This would also avoid what has been described as the bizarre and unnecessarily dangerous decision to build a children’s hospital above an underground car park where the risk of fire could substantially destabilise the structure, with potentially horrific consequences.

The suggested costs of making the national children's hospital at St. James's a digital hospital are €150 million.

The Deputy's time is up.

Dr. Sheehan said it would cost €50 million at the Connolly site. The square metre cost at St. James's quoted by the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris is €8,000 per square metre. Dr. Sheehan and others have said the rate at Connolly would average €4,000 or slightly more per square metre.

Please Deputy, the time is up.

I put it to the Taoiseach that these facts are available to us right now but unfortunately he will not listen and he will have history repeating itself. There is a saying in the east of the country that a person should always be careful of where he or she wears a halo because it is only less than one foot away from the neck. It could slip down and do catastrophic damage to the ego. I ask the Taoiseach to please listen to the experts, the sick children and the parents who know, and to stall the ball and re-evaluate to see where we go.

The first time that the idea of building a new national children's hospital was mooted in this House was in 1962. In 1993, the Royal College of Physicians, which represents paediatricians, advocated the merger of the three hospitals onto a single site. I was in school at the time and I remember as a medical student-----

In 1962?

It is back to school he needs to go.

-----and as a politician there being endless debates-----

Perhaps to night classes.

-----about where the new hospital should be located. Everyone had a different view, including planning experts, doctors, paediatricians, developers, you name it, on St. James's, the Mater, Tallaght, Beaumont, Blanchardstown, a site not co-located with an adult hospital at Newlands Road and another site by Belcamp near the M1. There was never consensus among doctors, planners or anyone as to where the best site should be. In 2012 the Government took a decision that the site should be Dublin 8 at St. James's Hospital, with satellite centres in Blanchardstown and Tallaght. In doing so the Government listened to the expert group chaired by Dr. Frank Dolphin. On that expert group were planners, developers, paediatricians and people who knew about building hospitals and where they should be located. It was always acknowledged that it would be quicker and cheaper to build it on a greenfield site. Nobody every doubted that. The decision was made in favour of St. James's, on the advice of the expert group chaired by Dr. Frank Dolphin, because of the advantages of co-location with an adult hospital and a maternity hospital. The advantages are that the hospital would be the biggest one in the State with the most advanced specialties and the most advanced opportunities for academic links and clinical research. This is why the decision was made. Yes, it would have been quicker and cheaper to build on a greenfield site - nobody ever argued otherwise - but it would not have been better. When deciding to build a project like this, which will stand the test of time and will still be used by children in 100 and 150 years, one makes the right decision, not the cheapest or quickest decision. This is why that decision was made.

The Taoiseach has said a lot there. We have a chance now to go back, re-evaluate and stall. The St. James's site was once described in a Department of Health briefing note as "the least worst option for delivery of this priority project”. Will the Taoiseach commit to meet Dr. James Sheehan, Dr. Finn Breathnach and others? Will he sit down in a room with them and talk to them at this stage, while BAM has offered the breathing space?

Relocating the children’s hospital is not just about saving hundreds of millions of euro in taxpayers' money. It is first and foremost about saving children’s lives. They must be the most important people of all. One of the most appalling aspects of this entire tragedy is the lack of capacity to develop a co-located maternity hospital. That is now not going to happen. The Taoiseach knows that - if he knew anything about the whole - and if he went back to school he could add up the sums. The maths just do not add up. It will not happen. This is not in keeping with international best practice and it will absolutely result in avoidable deaths in a few babies and significant disability and handicap in many other babies over the decades.

Professor Chris Fitzpatrick, an obstetrician and former master of the Coombe hospital, says maternity services co-location at St. James's Hospital is pie in the sky. Will the Taoiseach listen to him? Will he listen to anyone? There is none so deaf as those who do not want to hear. This is perhaps the most urgent reason to reassess and consider moving to a site which will permit co-location with a maternity hospital, which is vital but it will not happen at St. James's Hospital. I again appeal to the Taoiseach to do the right thing and stop the project until a full re-evaluation is carried out by experts, not PwC, which knows nothing about construction or issues like it. We need outside experts to tell us the very truth about what happened.

I have listened to all of those people. I respect all of them and hold them in the highest regard, whether it is Jimmy Sheehan, Chris Fitzpatrick, Finn Breathnach or Róisín Healy. I was her senior house officer when I worked in the emergency department in Crumlin. I respect them and have listened to and met them.

I did not say the Taoiseach had not.

However, this decision was made in 2012 on foot of expert advice and endorsed by the Dáil. It was made and the hospital project is well under way.

It is a hole in the ground.

Over €250 million has already been invested and the satellite centre at Blanchardstown is almost complete. Children will attend there to receive state-of-the-art, top-class healthcare this year.

There is no helipad and no access from the country.

Construction of the Tallaght satellite centre will start this year and it will be open to children in 2020. In 2022 construction will be completed on the main campus at St. James's Hospital, with the hospital to be commissioned by 2023.

Pie in the sky.

Please, Deputy.

It is already under way and we are not going back.