A design team is to be appointed for the construction of a second cath lab at University Hospital Waterford in the coming days.

Waterford Minister of State John Halligan says the HSE received formal notice today that the project is to be included in the Capital Programme.

The new lab and adjacent day ward, will be built above the existing ground floor Cardiology Department at UHW at a cost of 4.9 million euro.

John Halligan says the development of cardiac services at UHW has been beset with one delay after another.

He told WLR News this now gets the process underway, despite all the setbacks from the HSE. He says it took the intervention of the Taoiseach Leo Varadker and
Health Minister Simon Harris, but the design is on the way, the team has been appointed and the money has now been included in the Capital Project 2019.

He says People are sick and tired of hearing excuses from the HSE, it is not good enough.

Minister Halligan says he suspects that there could be interference from other areas in the Country. He says when you do have a second cath lab in Waterford it does
take away business from other cath labs around the area like Cork and Dublin.

John Halligan says with the second cath lab in place, it pushes the case for 24/7 cover forward.