Limerick East): Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin is the established national referral centre for a number of acute paediatric services including oncology and cardiac surgery and the Children's Hospital, Temple Street provides a national referral service for metabolic diseases and neurology. My Department has been in discussion over recent months with the three Dublin paediatric hospitals on the need to adopt a more strategic approach to planning and delivering acute services for children on a national or regional basis. A meeting was held last month with the chairmen of the three hospitals to initiate this process. Subsequently, a formal request was issued that the hospitals agree a mechanism, at board and executive level, to allow for a review of existing acute paediatric services. The hospitals have been asked for a preliminary response before the end of January 1997.