Mistakes in quantifying mechanical and electrical systems are largely to blame for the escalating costs of the new National Children’s Hospital, the health committee will hear today.

Plans for the new National Children’s Hospital on the St James’s Hospital campus in Dublin will be “vigorously opposed”, Jack and Jill Foundation founder and chief executive Jonathan Irwin said yesterday.

Fears now being expressed by An Taisce — that a new national children’s hospital will not be co-located with a maternity hospital — were first raised months ago by independent paediatric specialists.

The report documenting avoidable deaths of children in the care of the Department of Health/HSE over the last decade brings shame on us all and must bring renewed focus on the proposed new National Paediatric Hospital (NPH).

Plans to locate the proposed national children’s hospital at the Mater site in Dublin city centre could be resurrected after management at three hospitals in the area said they were puttingtogether a fresh proposal.

Past and present government officials have been accused of misrepresenting a 2007 report on where the National Children’s Hospital should be based by wrongly claiming the structure of international facilities examined supported an “integrated” co-location site.

A group that had always argued against the geogra- phically constrained Mater site welcomed the decision by Bord Pleanála.

Desperate attempts were being made last night by the Government to salvage the National Children’s Hospital, after plans for the long-awaited facility descended into a shambles.

The Government has insisted it remains 100% committed to the long-awaited national children’s hospital as it ordered experts to explain why planners rejected the Mater site.

Plans for the new dedicated children’s hospital in Dublin have been refused, it has been confirmed.

A NEW national children’s hospital to be built on the site of the existing Mater Hospital in Dublin will provide “a world-class medical facility”, a public inquiry heard yesterday.

THE sudden resignation of Philip Lynch, the Government-appointed chairman of the board of the new national children’s hospital, has thrown into sharp focus the ongoing controversy surrounding the choice of the Mater Hospital in the heart of Dublin as its proposed location.