Former head of the Health Service Executive Brendan Drumm said a decision must be made on the site of the National Children's Hospital, or he fears the project will be lost.
In February, An Bord Pleanála rejected a plan to build the hospital at the Mater hospital, due to the scale and height of the planned development.
Yesterday, it was reported that the review group set up in response to that decision now favours a site at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Mr Drumm said he still believed that the quickest way to build the hospital would be on the the Mater site, but the time for debating was over.
He said: "We need to stop debating and start digging. Government are entitled to make whatever decision Government's make.
"The big fear here is that this project will actually be lost, just like it has been lost in other cities before, like cities in Manchester in England where it was lost for 20 years because we went on with circular debates and never started to dig."
Mr Drumm said that no site would ever be perfect, but that everyone accepted that a National Children's Hospital needed to be built.
That the circumstances in which children are being cared for and in which health care professionals have to work are currently unacceptable, he said.
He added that to begin planning a new site would delay things by three to five years, and that in the current economic climate it would be difficult for the Government to leave the €400m required for the project untouched.
All hospitals still in the mix - Minister Reilly
The Minister for Health has said all hospitals are still in the frame in relation to the location for the new national paediatric hospital.
James Reilly described media reports that one hospital was ahead as “all conjecture”.
The minister said the process was ongoing and he had yet to bring the matter to Cabinet for decision, which he hopes to do by the end of this month.
