The Taoiseach has said that there is "no excuse" for the delays to the completion of the National Children's Hospital.
Micheál Martin said the "terrible thing" is that children today need a "world-class hospital and they are being denied that".
Yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee was told that there is still no date for the completion of the hospital and thousands of defects are yet to be resolved.
The hospital had an original completion date of August 2022 while costs have ballooned from a planned €650 million to an expected €2.2 billion.
"In my view the hospital will open, when everything has been sorted with the company," Mr Martin said in Athlone.
"The company need to put more people on site and need to fulfil the commitments that it has made in terms of completion.
"There are many, many claims being made by the company, which are being independently arbitrated," he added.
"We will robustly defend claims against the State through the mediation process," he said.
He said the Government took the "correct stance to do this professionally, robustly and at all times defending the tax-payer".
"We will get that hospital open. It will be state of the art. It will make a huge difference," he said.
The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDP) and Children's Health Ireland (CHI) said they were set to receive a programme update on the National Children's Hospital today.
A NPHDP spokesperson said: "When received, the ER will review the programme to assess if it is compliant with the Contract. This process will take a number of weeks."
Its Chief Officer, David Gunning, told the Public Accounts Committee yesterday that once the programme is seen and "reviewed for compliance, we will be in a position, assuming it's compliant, to provide an update to the committee in relation to the date".
IMO criticises National Children's Hospital 'blame game'
The President of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has criticised the "blame game" between the Department of Health, the HSE and the constructors of the National Children's Hospital over its completion date.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, President of the IMO Professor Matthew Sadlier said the public "blame game" between the three bodies was "just getting tedious for the rest of us".
He said: "Can they not do their business behind closed doors, have a joint press conference at some point in time and say look we've ironed out our differences, we're going to have a completion date of X.
"Rather than them conducting their negotiations through the newspapers, through wherever, that has become a very unedifying construct for those of us who are working within the system, those of us who are parents who are like - when is this going to happen?"
Prof Sadlier called for the Government to pass a health infrastructure bill or act which would allow the Government to "actually build health infrastructure".
He said: "At our recent AGM we passed a motion that healthcare infrastructure needs to become part of the Critical Infrastructure Bill.
"I'd actually now after yesterday go a little bit further and say the Government needs to pass a health infrastructure bill or act to actually allow them to build health infrastructure."
Mr Sadlier said that the planning authority is covered by legislation which the Government creates, adding that the Government can use this legislation to deliver critical national infrastructure.
He questioned how much of the infrastructure budget of the health service is being deviated towards the children's hospital, which would mean there is a lack of beds or theatres being delivered elsewhere.
Prof Sadlier said he was not surprised that there was no date for completion for the new children's hospital, adding that "we have all become habituated to the ongoing delays in this project and other infrastructure projects".
He criticised how long it took to agree to the design of the hospital and how we ended up with the statement building of a hospital, with a big curvy roof, with roof gardens, rainbow gardens, rather than just a practical hospital".
"Why are we more interested with what the outside of a building looks like than what goes on in the inside," he added.
Worst April on record for overcrowding - INMO
Meanwhile, the main nurses' union has said that last month was the worst April on record for hospital overcrowding.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation says its figures show that 11,000 patients had to wait for a hospital bed.
Phil Ní Sheaghdha, General-Secretary INMO, said this is a 29% increase on this time last year.
She said that the HSE's figures show there are "about 470 people is surge areas."
"That's a term they use when they put people in places where they shouldn't be," which delays the patient "flow" within a hospital "entirely," Ms Ní Sheaghdha said.
"That means right now we are looking at every single day about 500 patients in hospitals for who there are no beds."
