Northern Ireland's health minister has formally indicated in Stormont that he is endorsing a plan to establish Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Dublin as the all-Ireland centre for children's heart surgery.
The new policy is one of the most significant examples of cross-border co-operation in the health care sector.
An international group, chaired by a Boston-based cardiologist, had concluded that the operation of two surgical centres in Belfast and Dublin could not be justified.
Around 140 children from Northern Ireland require heart operations each year and the figure for south of the border is 400.
Surgery at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital will now cease but children from Northern Ireland will continue to receive their pre- and post-operative care there.
Today's announcement in the assembly was expected as the details of the agreement were agreed by Mr Wells in a meeting with his counterpart, Minister for Health Leo Varadkar, in discussions last year.
