This brazen raid on public purse

Sir — We can say ‘Slan to Slaintecare’. Vested interests run this country with the connivance of a self-serving government steeped in an ideology that nurtures the enrichment of the few over the many, with not a thought for that common good espoused in our Constitution.

This has initiated a brazen profiteering raid on the public purse while nudging Slaintecare, the universal healthcare plan, on to the sidelines.

It has reduced that noble aim of the National Children’s Hospital, albeit over-priced and in the wrong place for the wrong reasons, to a massive con trick on the citizens of this country, setting back many vital elements of an already crises-ridden health service for many years. to the detriment of the citizens inflicting more needless frustration, pain, and even death throughout the country.

Are Fine Gael treating the National Children’s Hospital as a ‘trophy project’ to be built at all costs so that their legacy will be seen to be one of the biggest hospitals of its kind and costing more than any other such hospital in the world?

The one aspect of this debacle which is incalculable is the damage done to the already depleted levels of trust in our political system.

Stop the project in its tracks, move to a greenfield site more accessible to all of the citizens of this country, secure the services of Dr Jimmy Sheehan of the Blackrock and other clinics — he has sound knowledge of hospital building — and get on with building a modern hospital, then use the current site for a smaller-scale specialist amenity attached to St James’s after the crises in many other areas of our health system have been fixed, including the Slaintecare universal healthcare plan.

Joe Brennan, Ballinspittle, Co Cork