The board of Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, has been told by Minister for Health Mary Harney she will not hesitate to have the decision to locate the new national children's hospital at the Mater hospital re-examined if consultants drawing up the design-brief conclude the site is inadequate.
The commitment from Ms Harney to the board is contained in agreed minutes of a meeting between the sides after Crumlin said it would not co-operate with the development of the new hospital due to its concerns about the size of the Mater site and accessibility.
The meeting took place on March 8th at Leinster House, but the minutes emerged into the public domain only yesterday.
RKW are the UK-based consultants drawing up the design-brief for the new hospital and their report is due out next month.
Ms Harney was criticised when she revealed before the election and prior to the completion of RKW's work that one of the three urgent care centres to be provided for children in Dublin when the new national children's hospital is built would be located in Tallaght - which would serve many of her constituents.
It was seen as an effort by Ms Harney to placate voters in an area about to lose its children's hospital. The children's hospitals in Tallaght, Crumlin and at Temple Street will be merged into the new national children's hospital on the Mater site. Ms Harney was also criticised by Labour for signing a statutory order on the day before the election to place the new children's hospital's development board on a statutory footing.
"The effect of this order is to establish under the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1961, a body known as the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which will design, plan, build, equip and furnish a national paediatric hospital," a Department of Health spokeswoman said.
But she claimed its timing was "of no significance" as Ms Harney had announced the board's members and had indicated her intention to sign the order.
Statutory orders can be revoked. Former minister for health Micheál Martin did so in 2004, when he changed the date for the start of the smoking ban.
Labour had said in its election manifesto it would revisit the decision to locate the new hospital on the Mater campus if elected.