The health minister wants heads on plates over the emergency department crisis, but the labyrinthine management structures in the health services may make his targets hard to choose. Caroline O’Doherty tries to untangle a very messy bureaucratic web.

The Health Minister Simon Harris has appealed to parents to avoid visiting Dublin's three children's hospitals this weekend as they face an "unprecedented, never before seen level of demand".

6.45am

A little girl with a complex bowel condition is to under- go vital medical tests at Great Ormond Street this weekend.

Lisa Flynn was one of a group of parents who travelled to Dublin yesterday to voice their opposition to the location of the new children’s hospital.

Figures show thousands of children are waiting for extended periods of up to four years to see specialists

The external design of the new National Children’s Hospital has been unveiled.

There is no better testament to the Easter Rising than to begin building the new national children’s hospital next year on one of its most famous battle sites, the South Dublin Union, Health Minister Leo Varadkar said yesterday.

The head of the Children’s Hospital Group said she is confident the National Paediatric Hospital will open its doors in 2018.

The former head of the children’s hospital development board has been appointed to lead the new hospital group.