I raise the issue of University Maternity Hospital Limerick and the long-awaited need to colocate the maternity hospital with the main acute hospital in the region. University Maternity Hospital Limerick delivers excellent care with good outcomes for mothers and babies. However, there is no ICU or blood bank on-site and the building has not changed significantly since I entered the world myself nearly 32 years ago. Much of the focus at UHL is rightly on the acute bed shortages and staff shortages in the UL Hospital Group but it is vital that this colocation, which the Minister for Health said in a parliamentary question reply to me is the next maternity colocation to be considered, goes ahead, because there are no ownership or land issues with this. When will a strategic assessment report and preliminary business case for this be completed?

I do not have the specific timelines on that but I can revert to the Deputy. I fully support the concept of colocation. The absence of colocation is a sad indictment of many of the healthcare structures and some of the hospitals themselves. The most significant colocation happened in the early 2000s with Cork University Maternity Hospital because the two hospitals involved and the private hospital in the city agreed to it. It happened and then we have had the Holles Street saga, which went on for far too long. it is incredible that it has not happened in other locations. Limerick seems to me to be the more obvious one, where there is apparently not a land issue. There will be huge expenditure, it will be subject to resources and so on, but at least the group could start doing all the planning, site assessment and so on. I will talk to the Minister about that.