The Finance Minister is to bring proposals to Cabinet in January to deal with spending overruns to the tune of €450 million in the construction of the National Children's Hospital.
Minister Paschal Donohoe is to help identify savings of €100m in 2019 alone to meet the escalating costs.
Some €50m of this will come from capital spending at the Department of Health and another €50m from other Government departments.
Around €130m of the extra cost will be met from philanthropic sources.
Concern was voiced at the Cabinet meeting today about the overrun which includes increased construction costs of €391m.
Earlier, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defended the escalating costs saying "it may turn out to be one of the most expensive children's hospitals in the world but it is also going to turn out to be one of the best".
Speaking in the Dáil, Mr Varadkar told Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin that while the €1.433bn was the Gross Maximum Price, it is possible for the cost to rise further.
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"The cost is €1.433bn. That cost is what they call the GMP which is the gross, or the agreed, maximum price but there are assumptions in that around tender price indexes and cost of inflation that may cause the cost to go up. I am not going to pretend otherwise," he said.
Mr Martin asked how the cost could have escalated from the figure of €983m given in response to a Parliamentary Question in September to €1.433bn now.
"In the space of about six weeks it has gone from less than a billion to €1.4bn apparently, which is extraordinary stuff," Mr Martin said.
He also said that the cost was estimated at €485m at the announcement, and at €650m in 2016, after planning permission was granted.
The Taoiseach also said the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board of the project would be available to meet the Public Accounts Committee to answer questions on the costs.
Mr Varadkar said the new hospital was the "biggest-single investment in the health of our children ever".
"It may turn out to be one of the most expensive children's hospitals in the world but it is also going to turn out to be one of the best," Mr Varadkar said.
He also told the Dáil that the Cabinet had approved the €1.433bn cost today. He said this cost represented a €450m increase on what was projected in April 2017.
Of this figure, he said that €319m was made up of increased construction costs, €50m was VAT, while the remainder was made up of planning design teams, risk contingency and ensuring the hospital was properly equipped.
Additional reporting, Micheál Lehane
