Planning granted for €650m children’s hospital

Health Minister Leo Varadkar said yesterday it was a “great regret and a great tragedy for the country” that the planned building of the new national children’s hospital took so long.

Planning permission has been granted for the new €650m hospital to be built at the St James’s Hospital site in Dublin. Construction is due to start in the summer and is expected to take four years.

An Bord Pleanála attached 17 conditions to the 10-year permission for the 473-bed hospital but did not seek any major changes to the original planning application.