Ireland's first children's hospice has been officially opened in Dublin by President Mary McAleese.
The €5.5m LauraLynn House in Leopardstown has been built with money raised entirely through fundraising.
It cares for children from birth to 18 years and their families.
The hospice has eight bedrooms, each with an ensuite facility.
There are over 1,400 children living with life-limiting or threatening conditions in Ireland. Around 350 children die each year from one of these conditions.
In the Dublin, Mid-Leinster and Northeast regions alone, over 400 children will need a palliative care environment this year.
The number is set to increase over the coming years.
The funding for the facility was raised over seven years by the Children's Sunshine Home and the LauraLynn Children's Hospice Foundation.
President McAleese said: "Nothing and no one can make easy the experience of the illness, dying and death of a child.
"The loss of a child is utterly life-altering but there are ways in which some of the dread, some of the fear, some of the awful loneliness can be assuaged.
"Here, dying children who cannot remain at home can spend their final days surrounded by familiar possessions and faces, in a home from home environment, away from the impersonal and often intimidating world of a hospital ward."
