The new National Children's Hospital is set to cost at least €1.7bn and is due to open in 2023.

It would be a policy decision for Government, he told Newstalk Breakfast, but he believes numbers need to be “really assessed.”

A 90-year-old pensioner woman was forced to endure more than 48 hours of pain on a trolley and chair during the worst ever period of overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick.

Members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have been scathing in their criticism of the Oireachtas printing scandal which will now cost the tax-payer €1.8m.

The figures were released today as part of the INMO's Trolley Watch.

The worst-hit hospital today is University Hospital Limerick.

It is only the second time ever this number has been hit and it has come over two weeks earlier than last year.

The figure is the second-highest ever recorded.

University Hospital Galway is the worst hit hospital today.

Last season’s beaten finalists Christian Brothers College got their Harty Cup campaign off to a positive start with an impressive 3-17 to 1-13 win over St Francis College, Rochestown.

The number is the highest since April 9 when there was a year-high 631 on trolleys.

Brendan Porter's mother Maura, aged 70, died after she was struck by a car on her way home from Mass in Carndonagh, Co Donegal in December 2013.

A woman who lived less than a mile from her local hospital died after an ambulance took almost an hour to get to her house.

504 patients are waiting for beds in Irish hospitals this morning.

78 patients in University Hospital Limerick are waiting for bed today, according to the INMO figures.

It is an increase of over 100 on yesterday's number.

There has been a 7% rise in the number of people waiting on trolleys in hospitals across the country.

Members of Ireland's construction industry unions are protesting this morning against bogus self-employment.

A hospital has lost, by a four to one majority, a Supreme Court appeal aimed at preventing a man suing it for damages over allegedly contracting a severe MRSA infection during surgery.

The man is in his 30s but it is not yet known whether he is a local resident.

A 92-year-old man has spent more than 70 days at Sligo University Hospital despite being medically fit to be discharged for at least 60 days, it has emerged.

Funeral arrangements have been announced for tragic mother of three Marie Downey and her infant son Darragh, who both died at Cork University Maternity Hospital, four days after little Darragh’s birth.

Two weeks ago they needed a late point to force a replay, this time around the girls of Loreto Clonmel needed no such dramatics as they turned in a dominant performance to record their second Munster title on the bounce.

Sixty minutes plus injury-time, 20 minutes of extra-time, another 10 minutes of "extra" extra-time, and still these brave teams couldn't be separated as they put everything they had into trying to earn a place in this year's Harty Cup semi-final.

Cork will have two schools in the last four of the Corn Uí Mhuirí after this evening's quarter-final draws threw up two all-Cork pairings.

A 33-year-old man has been arrested and is being held at Ashbourne Garda Station.

A gutsy second-half comeback means Hospital edge past Blackwater to finish top of Group C in the Dr. Harty Cup.

The annual Ring of Kerry charity cycle is gearing up for a phenomenal 35th year.

Latest: The Dáil has passed a Sinn Féin motion calling on the government to take more action on the trolley crisis.

Maria Gilroy’s diet prevents her consuming foods most of us take for granted — meat, fish, poultry, cheese, milk, bread, flour, rice, pasta, yoghurt, chocolate.

A “masterplan” is to be prepared to develop a former psychiatric hospital campus in Cork City after a disused unit was gutted in a suspected arson attack.

President Donald Trump has said he would be "delighted" to help terminally-ill Charlie Gard after his parents lost a legal fight to take him to the United States for treatment.

LIKE every disaster of its kind, the Grenfell catastrophe has provoked a re-examination of the safety standards which, had they been applied and acted on when they should have been, might have averted tragedy.

A couple who want to take their sick baby son to the US for treatment are waiting for a ruling on the latest stage of a legal battle after asking Court of Appeal judges not to take away the "only remaining hope".

There is growing concern about the oral health of older people, after it emerged over half had not visited a dentist for more than three years.

A father has been found guilty of murdering his deformed baby after both parents attempted to shift the blame for his death on to a young autistic child.

A man and woman have been arrested on suspicion of planning to abduct a baby from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.

An Independent TD is seeking an all-party motion in the Dáil calling for the suspension of plans for the proposed Children's Hospital at the St James' site in Dublin.

The family of a 15-year-old boy who drowned in the River Shannon heard today how a lifebuoy which could have possibly saved their son's life had been removed by vandals.