Planning permission for €100m wing for critically ill women and babies at Rotunda rejected

Seán McCárthaigh

Planning permission for a €100m new wing for critically ill women and infants at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin has been rejected following a successful objection by a conservation group.

An Coimisiún Pleanála has overturned a decision of Dublin City Council to approve the proposed development of a new four-storey, critical care wing which would have provided 80 extra hospital bedrooms as well as a new theatre and connections to the existing entrance and main hospital buildings.

The plans also provided for the demolition of the existing Outpatients Department on the Rotunda’s campus on the western side of Parnell Square.

The Commission upheld two appeals against the council’s ruling by the Dublin Civic Trust and an individual, while rejecting the recommendation of its own planning inspector to grant planning permission for the project.

In a letter to hospital staff, the Master of the Rotunda, Seán Daly, said the Commission’s ruling was “incredibly disappointing news for us all but most importantly for the families that we serve.”

An Coimisiún Pleanála said it agreed with the appellants that the proposal to demolish the Outpatients building and replace it with the Critical Care Wing would be contrary to the zoning objective of the site which only allowed limited expansion within Georgian conservation areas.

It claimed the proposed development would not serve to protect the existing architectural and civic design character of the site or Parnell Square generally.

The Commission said it was satisfied that the scale, form and location of the new wing meant it would “encroach upon and further compromise the architectural and historical integrity of Parnell Square.”

It claimed the development would “fundamentally alter its character” by creating a street frontage opposite protected 18th century houses that would fail to respect the historic charge and built heritage of the area.

The Commission said it was also satisfied that the proposed development would significantly impact the view across many protected structures within the Architectural Conservation Area.

It agreed with its own planning inspector and the Dublin Civic Trust that Parnell Square and its surroundings are “a heritage setting of the highest order” but also that the scale of the Critical Care Wing would have “clear heritage impacts.”

The Commission said it disagreed with the inspector’s view that the development represented limited expansion of the Rotunda campus as it pointed out that the new Critical Care Wing would have 10 times the floor area of the Outpatients building.

It also disagreed with the inspector that the plans represented an overwhelming public benefit “sufficient to justify the degree of heritage harm identified.”

The Commission noted that Government policy is to co-locate the Rotunda Hospital in the medium to longer term to Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown by which time the adverse impact of the proposed development on the character and setting of protected structures and the Georgian Conservation Area “could not be undone.”

In reaching its ruling, the Commission said it had taken into consideration the revised National Planning Framework in relation to the need for the health system to respond to projected population changes and reports and letters of support for the development as well as the underlying clinical imperative for the facility and the submissions of the appellants.

Daly warned last October that objections to the new wing would result in “significant risk in terms of providing optimum care” to patients transferred to the hospital from all over the country.

He called on the Government to “review the planning process, with respect to healthcare-related infrastructure, where delays are costly both in human and financial terms.”

Daly said the need for the new facility was “essential, both locally and nationally, for the provision of high-quality pregnancy-related and neonatal intensive care.”

The Critical Care Wing would have provided a 16-bed labour ward, a 20-bed neonatal intensive care unit, a 25-bed special care baby unit and a 19-bed post-natal unit together with a new operating theatre and recovery area.

Consultants for the Rotunda said the plans had been developed in line with built heritage policies and in consultation with Dublin City Council and conservation experts in order to minimise the visual and structural impacts on historic buildings.

They claimed the new wing would be an attractive contemporary structure that would replace an “unsightly” building and would be “in harmony with the historic architecture of Parnell Square.”

The hospital expansion was also supported by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald as well as several other local TDs including Gary Gannon.

Marie Sherlock – a Labour TD in Dublin Central – said there was a need for the new wing as the Rotunda was providing excellent care from “sub-par accommodation” with staff operating under very significant physical constraints.

In its appeal, the Dublin Civic Trust claimed the hospital’s plans represented a material contravention of the Dublin City Development Plan 2022-2028.

The organisation said it would result in a profound built heritage impact that would “irrevocably damage the character of Parnell Square”.

The trust’s chief executive, Graham Hickey, said the proposal also represented “poor healthcare planning, clinical practice and value for money.”

Hickey acknowledged “the extraordinary daily work of clinicians, staff and governors of the Rotunda” but said the development was being proposed “without a future plan for either the hospital or historic Parnell Square.”

He said it was “shocking and unacceptable” that the Rotunda had submitted “a gargantuan development proposal” that would build out and over “one of Dublin’s greatest gifts to European society and culture.”Dublin Civic Trust expressed hope that the refusal of planning permission would “set in train public health planning for a clinically optimal new site” as well as a masterplan for Parnell Square.

Another heritage body, An Taisce, also made a submission to the Commission in which it claimed the proposed hospital wing brought into question the status, future and regeneration potential of one of the great Georgian squares of Dublin.