“Nothing the HSE has done between 2015 and now suggests we will move to Connolly.<\/p>\n
“That decision was made in 2015, since 2015 Connolly has not been upgraded to a Level 4 hospital.<\/p>\n
“Everybody accepts that co-location has to be do a Level 4 hospital,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Daly said the Rotunda Hospital is “much more closely aligned to the Mater Hospital”.<\/p>\n
“No woman has died in the Rotunda in 20 years<\/p>\n
“We have very close associations with the Mater. They are a Level 4 hospital. They support us incredibly<\/p>\n
“Because of that we are looking to develop even closer links to the Mater Hospital,” he said.<\/p>\n
Decision to overturn planning ‘incredibly disappointing’<\/p>\n
Mr Daly said the decision to overturn planning for its new wing was “incredibly disappointing”.<\/p>\n
He said the Rotunda does not currently have appropriate infrastructure in place “because viability is becoming earlier and earlier, the challenges are becoming more and more”.<\/p>\n
He said babies who weigh as “little as a pound” are cared for “all in one room”.<\/p>\n
“There is literally a metre between one baby and the other. This is not 21st century neo-natal care,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It can have an impact both in terms of the outcomes for those babies and particularly for their families.<\/p>\n
![\"Master](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023e5d4-614.jpg\"\/)
\nSe\u00e1n Daly said babies who weigh as ‘little as a pound’ are cared for ‘all in one room’<\/p>\n
“Couples come in, parents come in, they can’t have time with their babies.”<\/p>\n
He said the length of time these “very, very fragile babies spend with us is increasing”.<\/p>\n
“The opportunity for infection or some other clinical scenario to occur increases, no doubt about that,” he said.<\/p>\n
He added: “We are in the same planning structure as someone who is looking to build a hotel.<\/p>\n
“That doesn’t seem reasonable.”<\/p>\n
Mr Daly said he has written to the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill on the issue.<\/p>\n
“There is outrage in Government and on the Opposition benches about this decision.<\/p>\n
“It makes no clinical sense,” he said,<\/p>\n
The Master said they are looking at all options including submitting a judicial review or a smaller scaled-back version of the wing.<\/p>\n
He said the development would help to “preserve the building”.<\/p>\n
“This was always a hospital site, it was never anything other than a hospital site,” he added.<\/p>\n
‘All options on table’, says T\u00e1naiste<\/p>\n
Speaking on the same programme, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said “all options are on the table” to get the plan for the Rotunda Hospital’s critical wing back on track.<\/p>\n
He said he was “beyond disappointed” and “kind of angry” that its planning was overturned. <\/p>\n
“This is about premature babies. It’s about them and their mums. It’s about providing them with infrastructure,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"T\u00e1naiste](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023e5a1-614.jpg\"\/)
\nT\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said he was ‘beyond disappointed’ by the decision<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said he discussed the issue with Ms Carroll MacNeill yesterday.<\/p>\n
“Government will look at all of the options to get this project back on track,” he added.<\/p>\n
He appealed to the public and organisations to “attach a real importance to the public good”.<\/p>\n
“Because sometimes, in urgent situations, you cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said: “Organisations, just because they have a right to, shouldn’t feel they have to submit a submission or an objection. “<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste said he can not thing of anything important than the “safety and wellbeing of vulnerable young babies”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Master of the Rotunda Hospital has ruled moving to Connolly Hospital after its \u20ac100 million critical care…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-299823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}