The Development Board’s primary remit is to plan, design, build, furnish and equip the new Children’s Hospital in accordance with the brief to be endorsed by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The new hospital will bring together the expertise of the three current children’s hospitals in Dublin into one organisation ensuring a critical mass of specialist knowledge and skills to cater for our sickest children. It will also drive standardisation of care processes across paediatric services in Ireland.
The hospital building is planned to have a floor area of over 108,000sqm and be up to 16 storeys in height with an additional 4 storeys of basement accommodating 972 car parking spaces. It will have 445 beds, 13 operating theatres and 2 procedure rooms and accommodate the National Children’s Research Centre along with a hospital school plus undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional education facilities. It will feature play and therapy areas, external gardens and courtyards, a family resource centre with accommodation and facilitate access to the metro North line.
Subject to planning permission, construction will commence in 2012 and will continue until 2016. Following fit out and commissioning, the new hospital should be up and running by the end of 2016. In support of the new hospital, an Ambulatory and Urgent Care Centre will open at Tallaght in 2015 to provide paediatric emergency care, elective day care and outpatient services.