10 Years Later - Will the Rotunda Ever Move to Connolly?

In 2015, the then Minister for Health Leo Varadkar announced that the Rotunda National Maternity Hospital was to relocate from the city centre to the Connolly Hospital Campus.

It was seen as needed to recognise the growing population of west Dublin, north Kildare and east Meath, and because the existing Rotunda buildings were so old.

It's now almost exactly 10 years since that announcement in June 2015, and what's happened?

Well, not a whole lot. I have been asking the Minister for Health and the HSE where this proposal is at.

I've discovered that just over €800,000 has been spent so far on the relocation project - mainly in 2017-18.

However when I most recently asked the Minister for Health about the project (in late June) she told me, “Timelines for relocation of the […] Rotunda are therefore not yet established”.

Ten years later, and not timeline established!

The relocation was mentioned in the 2020 Programme for Government, but it is not referred to in the new Programme for Government agreed this January.

Since 2015, there has been investment in the existing city centre Rotunda site, and that's great. It was badly needed.

But the Government needs to be straight with Dublin West, and clarify if there is still a proposal to move the Rotunda to Connolly, or are they just trying to avoid delivering bad news.

I'll will keep questioning the Minister for Health about this come September.