The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, is expected to announce an independent inquiry later this week into the circumstances surrounding the death of a two-year-old Limerick girl, Róisín Ruddle.
The child died at her home in Kilmacow, near Adare, on July 1st within hours of being sent home by Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, after her heart surgery was postponed.
A report on the incident was compiled by the Eastern Regional Health Authority, but the child's parents, Mr Gerard Ruddle and Ms Helen Quain-Ruddle, said it left many questions unanswered.
It did not address the issue of whether or not the child should have been sent home, but simply set out the reason for her surgery being cancelled.
The reason given was a shortage of intensive care nurses to care for her after an operation to correct a congenital heart defect.
The girl's parents had a private meeting with Mr Martin last Friday at which their request for an independent inquiry was discussed.
It is understood Mr Martin accepts their plea for an independent investigation and will announce an inquiry once a team is assembled to conduct it.
The inquiry is likely to be conducted by two or three independent experts, along the same lines as that last December into the death of Bronagh Livingstone in Co Monaghan.
The premature baby was born in an ambulance en route to Cavan General Hospital after her mother, in an advanced stage of labour, was told she could not deliver the baby in Monaghan Hospital, where maternity services had been suspended.
It is unclear at this stage when the ERHA report in the Róisín Ruddle case will be published. It may have to wait until after the independent inquiry into the child's death is complete.