A delay of two-and-a-half years can be expected should an alternative site to the Mater be chosen for the children’s hospital, it has been claimed.

More than 40 consultants have called for the long-delayed national children’s hospital — set to be based at St James’s — to be directly linked to a leading maternity site.

We write to you as a group of hospital consultants working in close collaboration across the Mater, Temple St, and Rotunda Hospitals, on the pressing national issue regarding where to locate the long and urgently awaited new Children’s Hospital.

The Mater Hospital claims it remains the best site for the location of a national children’s hospital after it unveiled plans for a redesign of the original project which was unexpectedly rejected by An Bord Pleanála last February.