John Sisk & Son has been appointed as main contractor for the €1.86bn National Maternity Hospital at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Elm Park, Dublin, following Government approval for the project to proceed to construction.
The development will replace the existing National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street with a facility that brings maternity, neonatal and gynaecological services alongside the acute and specialist services at St Vincent’s University Hospital.
Designer Group has been appointed as the reserved specialist contractor for mechanical and electrical works.
Enabling and preliminary works on the St Vincent’s campus are almost complete, with the main construction phase expected to begin in early 2027.
The hospital is scheduled for completion in 2033.
The approved project budget is approximately €1.861bn, excluding VAT.
New hospital to provide 244 beds
The new seven-storey hospital will cover more than 54,000 sqm and provide 244 beds, each in a private room with an en-suite bathroom.
Clinical facilities will include five operating theatres and 24 birthing rooms, alongside neonatal intensive care, early pregnancy foetal assessment and ultrasound services.
The hospital will also provide expanded colposcopy, ambulatory gynaecology and urogynaecology services, as well as regional fertility services and facilities for the treatment of endometriosis.
A dedicated urodynamics room will support the investigation and treatment of bladder incontinence.
Designed to operate alongside St Vincent’s University Hospital, the development will provide direct access from the maternity hospital’s theatres and high-dependency unit to the adult hospital’s theatres and intensive care unit.
The co-location is intended to improve access to specialist and critical care for women and newborn babies, particularly those with complex clinical needs.
The new facility will also serve as a national tertiary referral centre for complex cases referred from maternity units and hospitals across Ireland.
It is designed to accommodate up to 10,000 births annually.
Construction follows Government approval
The agreement to proceed follows a public procurement process and detailed collaboration between the Health Service Executive (HSE), Ireland’s publicly funded health service, and the preferred tenderers under a pre-construction services agreement (PCSA).
The process was designed to review and validate the construction programme, providing greater time and cost certainty before contracts are signed.
“We are pleased to have been appointed as delivery partner by the HSE to lead the delivery of this vital piece of healthcare infrastructure,” said Paul Brown, Chief Executive of Sisk.
He said the company’s experience delivering healthcare projects in Ireland and its collaborative approach to working with stakeholders gave him confidence that the development would enhance healthcare resilience, improve patient outcomes and increase access to care.
The existing National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street will continue to provide services while the new facility is developed.
The HSE reported that more than 7,000 babies were born at the existing hospital in 2025, alongside more than 128,000 outpatient attendances.
More than 1,300 babies received care in its neonatal intensive care unit during the year.
