The Labour Party is frustrated that building work has not started on a new maternity hospital in Dublin.

Plans for the development have been delayed following a dispute over who should have governance control at the site on the campus of St Vincent's Hospital.

Senator and spokesperson on Dublin, Kevin Humphreys, is urgently calling for construction to begin.

He said: "It is unacceptable that women and children are being put at risk over what are mainly men in grey suits on boards arguing over who will be in control of what budgets.

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"I understand it is a voluntary hospital and when the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, was in the House in June, he said he did not have a plan B. That is not an excuse. The mediator has been working since June but we have heard no result.

"The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, has presented a damning report on Holles Street hospital - not on the staff but on the conditions, including overcrowding.

"It is no longer acceptable that we should have a turf war between two hospitals that is affecting the health of and good outcomes for our children, and for women who go into that hospital to deliver babies."

(CD)