Dr. Emma Curtis:

Specifically on the new children's hospital, one of the intentions is that with the development of what we are calling a foundation stone of general paediatric care, which replicates the general paediatric care available in all the regional hospitals, access to specialist care - the cardiologists and rheumatologists - is the same for everybody throughout the country. Everybody gets the same foundation level of secondary care wherever they live. If one lives in Dublin, one does not go straight to a specialist. One goes to a secondary general paediatrician who is highly competent and will deal with the vast majority of children he or she sees and then everybody across the country has equal access to the specialist care. Our aim is equity in access for children throughout Ireland.