National Children's Hospital

[Purple]

We seem to have a "new" problem with the NCH. It seems no-one is interested in working in the place if and when it gets completed. I say completed but I'm not sure what that means as the original set of deliverables is being reduced as we speak. It seems they'll be short several hundred of the specialists required to keep a large facility running over several shifts through holidays etc.

I say "new" problem as this should have been the first question the various project teams asked themselves; how many staff can we attract to work in Dublin, given the housing, cost of living,transport and parking problems there'll be in a city-centre brown-field site? The number of staff define the size and complexity of the facility and that drives design and therefore cost.

Anyone care to predict how much of the new NCH will lie empty and decaying after it is officially "finished"?

I always thought it strange that the State invests a third of a million in training Irish doctors without any clause about them working here for a few years before they bugger off somewhere else. Of course the 30% or so of doctors we train who are from outside Ireland who pay €50,000 a year in fees are entitled to go home when they complete their training but given that all doctors, according to themselves, are selfless angles who only want to help others their lack of gratitude is remarkable.
The same, of course, applies to nurses.

 

[odyssey06]

I always thought it strange that the State invests a third of a million in training Irish doctors without any clause about them working here for a few years before they bugger off somewhere else. Of course the 30% or so of doctors we train who are from outside Ireland who pay €50,000 a year in fees are entitled to go home when they complete their training but given that all doctors, according to themselves, are selfless angles who only want to help others their lack of gratitude is remarkable.
The same, of course, applies to nurses.

I think everyone should have to pay off free tuition, I don't mean in strict monetary terms but in terms of X years working in the state, whether doctors or engineers.

 

[Purple]

I agree. I’m against free third level on principle. It only benefits we’ll off families as people from poor backgrounds never paid fees to begin with. The money saved could be used to give greater support to those people who actually need it.

 

[odyssey06]

I agree. I’m against free third level on principle. It only benefits we’ll off families as people from poor backgrounds never paid fees to begin with. The money saved could be used to give greater support to those people who actually need it.

Only if the means testing system is revised because at the moment it amounts to discrimination against PAYE workers and a corresponding student loan system is put in place.