Construction BUSINESS

Health Minister Simon Harris has announced the Government has approved the investment required to enable the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board to award the construction contracts for the building of the main children’s hospital.

The project will be located on the St James’s Hospital campus and the two Paediatric Outpatients and Urgent Care Centres on the Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals campuses. This decision means that the project can proceed without delay. Construction of the new children’s hospital will commence within weeks.

Minister Harris said: “Today is a huge step forward for the children’s hospital project, ending years of doubt as to whether it would ever be built. Today, there is no more doubt. This hospital will be built. The new state of the art children’s hospital, and the two Paediatric Outpatient and Urgent Care Centres, will provide a fitting place where we can provide our children with the best modern clinical care.

“Site clearance work, which began last year, is almost complete and so we’ll start building works in the next few weeks. I anticipate that the new hospital, which will serve all of the children of all Ireland, will open in 2021, with the two Outpatient and Urgent Care Centres at Tallaght and Connolly opening well in advance at the end 2018 and the first quarter of 2019,” concluded the Minister.

The St James’s campus will also be home to the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital thus achieving tri-location of adult, paediatric and maternity services.