Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said she is "disappointed" with the pace of construction of the National Children's Hospital (NCH), and will meet with the CEO of the construction group BAM on Friday.
Speaking to reporters in Dublin, Ms Carroll MacNeill said: "I've been there a couple of times in the last few weeks, and on every occasion that I've been there, I have not seen the number of people working there that I believe I should be to meet the 30 April deadline."
She said she is "not satisfied" with the number of rooms being completed, adding that over a four-week average, about 167 are finished a week, saying: "It's becoming cumulatively worse relative to where it should be in terms of room completions."
Ms Carroll MacNeill said she had written to the global headquarters of the main contractor on the project, BAM, and said its CEO and two senior executives will meet with her at the hospital on Friday.
During recent visits to the hospital, she said she was "disappointed" she did not see "hundreds and hundreds of people working there", and "if there were I didn't see them".
She said she hoped the BAM executives would be able to explain to her "where the people are", and "how they're going to meet the deadline, that is their deadline, which is one that they've missed several times."
In a statement, BAM said it was continuing to work closely with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board and CHI to deliver the hospital "as quickly and safely as possible for the children of Ireland",
"The National Children's Hospital project is now in the final stages of completion and commissioning. Work is taking place simultaneously across several areas of the building, including highly technical and clinical areas that require specialist commissioning work.
"The project continues to be resourced to support the work currently underway, with specialist teams continuing to complete the remaining programme," it added.
Earlier, Ms Carroll MacNeill said the Government is hoping BAM will deliver a key area of the NCH in Dublin in the coming weeks.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with David McCullagh, she said that several floors of the hospital have been completed, but the so-called "hot block" is essential because it houses labs and is where surgeries will take place.
"We have the sixth floor completely, we have the ground floor and the lower ground floor.
"The ground floor is where the emergency department is. We got that there just at the beginning or the end of last week," she said.
Listen: Health Minister updates on Slaintecare progress and children's hospital
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The minister added: "What we really, really need is the hot block, which is where the surgeries are, where the laboratories are.
"That's the piece that we really need and that BAM should be giving us."
Ms Carroll MacNeill also said parts of Dublin city might have to be closed down to facilitate moving sick children from other hospitals to the NCH.
"Certainly what I think you're looking at is making blue light corridors between say Crumlin and the new hospital.
"Fortunately that's a reasonably short distance, but you're looking essentially at closing down blue light corridors and just having complete straight access for an ambulance from one hospital to the other," she said.
The minister added that the timeline for the move will have to take into account uptake of the flu vaccine, respiratory viruses that might be circulating and how many ambulances are available.
She also said that elective surgeries may have to be cancelled "for a number of weeks beforehand" to help facilitate the move.
"You do it within the measures that you can control. You can't control urgent and emergency care. You can't control long-term illnesses.
"But you can, if you're going to schedule procedures, not do it just at that particular moment," Ms Carroll MacNeill said.
Last month, the Health Service Executives capital plan for this year set out how around €1.3 billion in funding for health infrastructure, equipment and furnishing nationwide will be spent this year, with a further €97m of this going towards the completion of the NCH.
