A device to assist a patient's heart keep beating, while the patient awaited a heart transplant, was inserted for the first time in the State in a patient at a Dublin hospital earlier this month.
The operation was carried out at the national heart/lung transplant unit at the Mater hospital, which also carried out the first lung transplant operation in the State this month.
Mr Freddie Wood, lead surgeon on the transplant team, confirmed yesterday that this latest operation had taken place and said it was an important development which could help patients for over three years while they awaited a heart transplant.
"This month alone we have done two heart transplants, one lung transplant and we inserted the first artificial heart," he said.
"It worked very well for 13 days but unfortunately the young man died at that stage".
This device had been inserted outside the body.
"We need this. We need it because in our heart transplant population 25 per cent of them die within six months of being listed for a heart," Mr Wood said.
"It's not just because there aren't enough donors because they mightn't get an appropriate match in time and we can use these artificial devices to bridge them.They can be long-term for two or three years, but they are not life-long."
"This was the first one in Ireland," he added.
The devices are made in the US and have been used abroad for a number of years.