One of three urgent care centres to be provided for children around Dublin when the new national children's hospital is built at the city's Mater hospital site is to be located in Tallaght. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The others are likely to be located in Blanchardstown and Loughlinstown.
Minister for Health Mary Harney confirmed in a statement yesterday that one of the centres would be sited in a new purpose-built building in Tallaght, which will deal not just with minor injuries but will also provide day surgery and outpatient clinics.
Her statement, which comes ahead of the completion of deliberations by external consultants RKW on how the satellite centres should be organised, will be seen as an effort by her to placate voters in Tallaght, which is about to lose its children's hospital, in the run-up to the election.
The Tallaght urgent care centre will serve many of her constituents.
Labour has said in its manifesto that it would revisit the controversial decision to locate the new national children's hospital on the Mater campus.
A spokesman for Ms Harney said her statement was based on briefings she had received and that it was important "there was some clarity put out there".
It is understood the Tallaght urgent care centre will be bigger than the ones provided in Blanchardstown and Loughlinstown.
Ms Harney's statement said the Tallaght centre would provide care for up to 48,000 urgent care attendances a year, some 15,000 more than are currently provided at the children's hospital in Tallaght.
It will, she said, be open seven days a week from 8am until midnight.
The children's hospital in Tallaght, as well as Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin and Temple Street Children's University Hospital will be merged into the new national children's hospital on the Mater site.
Dr Pat Doherty, chair of the medical board and a member of the board of management at Crumlin hospital, expressed surprise at Ms Harney's announcement.
"We are surprised in the absence of the completion of the RKW report and the fact that it hasn't been considered by the HSE that an element of the proposed development would have been announced at this particular point in time," he said.
A spokesman for the HSE said the RKW report was being finalised and would be published later in the summer.