On behalf of myself and the Labour Party, I express my support and solidarity for the people of Paris and France following the devastating fire at Notre-Dame de Paris last night, a world heritage site that, hopefully, can be fully restored.

In recent weeks, women from across Ireland have been telling their stories on Joe Duffy's "Liveline" about their experiences of our maternity services. There is an urgent need to improve our maternity hospitals. Last year, we saw months of delay in beginning the work on moving the national maternity hospital to its new site at St. Vincent's hospital. While Holles Street continues to deliver excellent care to mothers and babies, international best practice is for maternity hospitals to be situated on the same campus as acute hospitals to allow for all the necessary consultants and specialist care to be provided on site. That delay is regrettable.

This year, the Government has confirmed that the plan for the national children's hospital involves the co-location of the Coombe maternity hospital, which is to be moved from its current location on Cork Street. The trilocation with St. James's Hospital would provide for best international practice. However, the Minister for Health has confirmed in recent days that there is no funding this year to start the work on moving the Coombe to the St. James's site. Earlier this year, I asked him to confirm whether there was sufficient space on the St. James's site for a new maternity hospital. According to newspapers, a three-acre site has been put aside. The Taoiseach might indicate exactly where that is, as people have asked and encountered difficulty in identifying it.

The Minister has indicated that he will be spending money this year on theatres in the Coombe in lieu of moving it. To what extent will this investment be transferable once the new hospital is built? Is this investment in the Coombe an indication that it will remain at the Coombe site for years to come?

Will the Government provide a clear timeline for the delivery of the new national maternity hospital at St. Vincent's, that is, when it is envisaged that it will be completed and opened? Will the Government further provide a timeline for the moving of the Coombe maternity hospital to the tri-located site at St. James's and confirm whether there will be enough space? Finally, will the Government provide a timeline for the delivery and relocation of Limerick's new maternity hospital, which, by everybody's understanding, is also urgently needed?

The Deputy will be aware that for the best part of 20 years, no new hospitals, with the exception arguably of one, were built.

That is not true.

We are in a very different space today, with three hospitals under construction, namely, the national children's hospital, the national forensic mental health hospital in Portrane and the new national rehabilitation hospital in Dún Laoghaire.

The Taoiseach should answer the questions.

After a long time, therefore, without any new hospitals being built, there are now three projects in train.

That is not true. It is a distortion.

Apart from the Central Mental Hospital, which other hospital was built in the past 20 years?

Tullamore hospital and Tallaght Hospital.

Tullamore hospital was built 20 years ago.

It was not.

It is not far off 20 years in any event. Tallaght Hospital was built in 1999.

Whole wings have been built.

St. Vincent's is a relatively new hospital.

The Taoiseach to respond.

I am often accused of spin. If, however, people think a new ward or wing constitutes a new hospital, they need to reconsider.

What about the timelines?

Maternity services are very good, which we see from patient outcomes at all levels. The staff in maternity services, such as midwives, nurses, obstetricians and others, do a fabulous job. There are approximately 60,000 births every year but, while services are good, there will always be people who have an unsatisfactory or bad experience. It is important that we listen to those stories, learn from them, and see what we can improve. For the past two years, we have carried out a patient experience survey in which patients are asked to judge our health service. A total of 83% have indicated that they had a good, very good or excellent experience. We need to extend that to maternity services.

The national maternity strategy provides for the co-location and relocation of four maternity hospitals. Holles Street will be moved to the St. Vincent's campus, while St. Munchin's hospital in Limerick will be moved to the Dooradoyle campus. The Coombe hospital will be moved to the St. James's campus, a site for which has been designated for some time, although it will involve demolishing outpatient clinics and other actions. The Rotunda Hospital will be moved to Blanchardstown.

What about timelines?

They cannot all be done at the same time. We are building three hospitals. Only so many can be built at one time. Planning permission has been secured for the first, Holles Street hospital, which will be moved to St. Vincent's., where necessary works are under way to move the pharmacy and make space for the new hospital. I anticipate that will go to tender this year and that construction will begin next year. The others will move into the tendering, planning and design process, which has not yet started. The projects will have to be completed one by one. It would be wrong of me to indicate a particular timeline and then be unable to stand over it, particularly when one considers what has happened in the context of other major capital projects.

The Taoiseach is right that we are fortunate to have extraordinary people working in maternity services but they often work in adverse conditions. This afternoon, the HSE apologised to those women whose experiences were outlined on Joe Duffy's radio programme and recognised shortcomings that need to dealt with through the provision of proper resources. The Taoiseach indicated that the Holles Street will be moved but the project was announced by the former Minister for Health, Senator Reilly. As the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, I allocated the money to allow that to happen. However, it still has not happened. The money was allocated almost five years ago.

The most urgent issue now is that we are building a state-of-the-art children's hospital. It is to be tri-located but the Government will give no indication of when the Coombe Hospital will be moved to the site involved.

The Government has an opening date for a new children's hospital but the whole idea was to have it close to a maternity hospital-----

That is vital.

-----whereby the most vulnerable babies could have instant access to the best children's hospital facility.

Thank you, Deputy.

I am using the 24 seconds that I kept from the last bit.

Yes.

Will the Taoiseach indicate whether he agrees with me that it is urgent, if the vision for the determination that St. James's Hospital is the appropriate site, to have three hospitals built and that one of them cannot be put into abeyance sine die?

To the Deputy's credit, he allocated funding for the relocation of the national maternity hospital to St. Vincent's hospital and he allocated a sum of €50 million for the Coombe and Rotunda hospitals. As we all know, allocating a sum is not the same as allocating the amount of money that will be required to do these projects. We will not know that figure until the tenders come in and the planning and design have been done. One thing we are changing about public procurement is that we will not decide to go ahead with any major capital project now until the tenders actually come in.

Is the Taoiseach suggesting the Coombe move will not go ahead?

That is a change but it is a change for the better. It is not correct to claim credit for having allocated the money for something before actually knowing what it would cost.

Is the Taoiseach suggesting the Coombe is not going ahead, subject to some other verification?

Everyone agreed with us three years ago that we would not sign off on major capital projects until the tenders came in and we know the price.

Surely the whole basis of-----

The Government did that.

That applies-----

It signed off on the children's hospital.

That applies to all projects of every nature.

All except the children's hospital.

It appears to be a sensible policy in my view.

€2 billion.

€400 million.

I would be delighted to answer these questions but I am not-----

I do not think that is the case.

The Taoiseach is not making sense.

Please.

The policy for a very long time has been to trilocate a national children's hospital with a maternity hospital and an adult hospital. Seven years ago, it was decided to do this at the St. James's Hospital site largely for medical and clinical reasons, not reasons based on cost or planning. The children's hospital is now under construction. It will be finished in 2022 and commissioned in 2023.

We are over time.

We will need to start planning and design for the Coombe Hospital to move to the adjacent site before that.