Ollie's €42,000 given to Crumlin

The Ollie's Little Heart Appeal organised by Noel & Katrina O'Connell and a host of friends has handed over €42,000 to the Childrens Medical & Research Foundation at Crumlin Hospital, writes Brian Byrne.

The money is going directly to the costs of building a new Cardiac Unit at the hospital, which will cost over €4m. Just over half that cost has been raised and the project has started in on the programme of work. It is hoped that the ward will be ready in the middle of next year.

Little Ollie is currently back in the hospital, where he has undergone a series of heart operations since he was born earlier this year.

The local campaign will continue fundraising for the project into 2013, with one suggestion being a Summer Ball. "Anything raised from now on will be used to purchase equipment for the fit out," Noel writes today to those who supported the effort. "Staff are doing a wish list and we will pick off that."