Debate contribution: Daisy Hill Hospital: Shared Island Fund
Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on .
- MLA
- Mr Robbie Butler
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 21 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Daisy Hill Hospital: Shared Island Fund
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5742314
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for his question. The Shared Island Fund was established to support specific projects and initiatives rather than to provide the long-term recurrent funding that would be required to sustain and expand hospital services. It is therefore not an available funding route when considering any future development at Daisy Hill Hospital. Let me be clear, however, that I have no ideological opposition to considering anything that would strengthen the sustainability of that or any other hospital. Daisy Hill plays an important cross-border role, providing services to patients from both jurisdictions. For example, there is an ongoing interface project within the Health Service Executive in Louth and Meath, which sees long-waiting paediatric patients from the South accessing a bespoke weekend dental service in the hospital's paediatric theatres. That has produced overwhelmingly positive feedback. In May 2020, as part of the all-island congenital heart disease network, the Southern Trust was appointed as one of five regional paediatric centres across Ireland. The centre provides cardiac services for children and families closer to home, avoiding their having to travel to Dublin or Belfast unnecessarily. The staff work closely with colleagues in Belfast and Dublin to assess, review and manage infants and children with potential or confirmed congenital heart disease.
The Southern Trust is committed to exploring opportunities to meet needs in the greater Newry area and beyond. I am supportive of any proposals on cross-border collaboration that can offer sustainable benefit to patients. Daisy Hill is also one of the region's elective overnight stay centres and is seeing increased patient numbers and surgical activity across a number of areas since April 2023. Almost 11,000 elective surgical procedures have been undertaken there. I remain committed to the hospital's future.
287 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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