Plans for the 'Tri Location Super Hospital Complex' in Corkagh were submitted for planning permission late last month and now developer Richard Farrington and architect David Leahy are waiting anxiously for the green light on the project.

"We continue to be very hopeful that this site will be used instead of that of the Mater, " Leahy told the Sunday Tribune this weekend.

"We'll watch with bated breath as the planning application goes through. This type of development is zoned for in the area so I don't see any reason why we wouldn't get it. Once it is validated, then the debate should really start in earnest as to where this hospital should go."

In January last, Farrington put a spoke in the HSE/Department of Health wheel, when he announced an alternative to the Mater Hospital site. Farrington's plans include a 450-bed children's hospital, a 220-bed maternity hospital, and a 450bed adult hospital. However, Mary Harney rejected the proposal out of hand, saying "in the main because it is not co-located with an adult teaching hospital" it was not suitable.

"It is possible the minister for health misunderstood the application because there is an adult hospital included in the plans, " said Leahy. "Everyone isn't right all the time but, when something is so blatantly wrong, you have to stand up against it. The Mater site just does not make sense.

You will always have serious problems with accessibility and expansion. What happens when there's a match on in Croke Park in the afternoon and a Christina Aguilera concert that night? What happens to all the families trying to get to the hospital?"

Leahy said he is confident they will have received a decision on the planning application before any work begins on the Mater. "When that happens, we're all prepared to go, " he said. "We've spent a year preparing for this, talking to people in different hospitals, our planning consultants, our design team. We are very serious about this proposal."

When asked, the Department of Health did not provide an architect's drawing or design of the proposed hospital on the Mater site.

Asked whether any plans for the site had been submitted for planning permission, a spokeswoman for the department said the transition group is currently preparing "a high-level framework brief" for the new hospital.

"The brief is being developed by Rawlinson Kelly & Whittlestone Ltd, " she said.

"RKW will be advising on a range of issues which will help to inform the design of the new hospital. It is expected that RKW's report will be finalised this month."