Meadhbh McGivern, the Leitrim teenager who missed out on a liver transplant last July because no adequate transport could be found to bring her to London, finally underwent the operation on Thursday.

The 14-year-old and her family received a call at around 10pm on Wednesday night to alert them that a suitable liver was available. They went straight to Baldonnel aerodrome and from there, flew to Heathrow Airport.

Ms McGovern and her parents were then brought to King's College Hospital In London, where the teenager underwent the almost 14-hour surgery.

It is understood that she is now in a stable condition in the hospital's paediatric intensive care unit.

Last month, a probe into the earlier transportation failure found that there was no organised or managed system to perform the transport successfully.

It said that a key factor behind the failed patient transfer was that nobody was in charge or accountable for the process. A number of different bodies, including the HSE, the Air Corps, the Department of Transport and the Coast Guard, were involved in the attempted airlift of the patient.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), which carried out the review of the case, said it was clear that the people involved in attempting to get Ms McGivern from Ireland to London entered into desperate means to try to achieve this.

"However, this was in the absence of any organised or managed system, or the required knowledge of logistics to adequately do so," explained HIQA chief executive, Dr Tracey Cooper.

The teenager suffers from progressive liver disease.