‘Crazy’ that Children’s Hospital deadline has been missed 15 times, Dail hears

It is “crazy” that the deadline for the National Children’s Hospital to open has been missed 15 times, the Dail has been told.

The Public Accounts Committee heard on Thursday that in the past seven months, developer BAM had achieved around 60% of its planned progress.

This has moved the completion deadline from June to September 30 – the 15th time the substantial completion date has been extended, according to the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board.

Sinn Fein finance spokesman Pearse Doherty told the Dail the hospital had become “an epic saga” which has ballooned from a cost of 650 million euro to 2.2 billion euro.

“The deadline for opening this hospital has been missed 15 times – 15 times. Like that’s crazy. Crazy,” he told Tanaiste Simon Harris during Leaders’ Questions.

“You’ve broken your election promise when you said it would be delivered in June.

“Do you really expect the public to have any greater faith in this date compared to any one of the other 15 dates that you and your Government ministers have announced?”

He accused Mr Harris, a former health minister, of signing off on a contract to build the hospital that was “skewed in favour of the construction company”.

“It was build-as-you-go, and that is why BAM has the state over the barrel for the last eight years.”

“Now your Government is blaming the construction company. It’s not a surprise to anybody on this side that developers are going to squeeze as much profit out as they can. But competent ministers… are supposed to protect the public purse,” he said.

Mr Harris said the hospital was “well over 95% complete” and technical commissioning was under way.

He accused Sinn Fein of hypocrisy and said a children’s hospital to be built in Belfast would cost more per square metre than Dublin’s, citing the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).

“The First Minister of Northern Ireland, who’s your party’s vice president, said she was ‘delighted that £671 million would be spent on a state-of-an-art children’s hospital at Belfast Royal Victoria Hospital.

“Ladies and gentlemen, who was that contract with? Does anyone know? BAM, the same developer who’s building the hospital in this jurisdiction.”

He said BAM had since pulled out of the project, which had delayed it.

“They (the PBO) have looked at the hospital Sinn Fein are presiding over the north, the hospital we’re presiding over here with BAM, and they found yours is more expensive than the one we’re delivering. So get over yourself with the absolute hypocrisy.”

He said the hospital has 22 operating theatres, 6,150 rooms with spaces for parents to stay with their child, and a helipad.

“We know it’s a hospital that costs more than originally intended, that is true.

“And yes, you know – because you’ve been covering finance for a hell of a long time for your party – you know that we’ve changed significantly the approach we take to the delivery of infrastructure.”

Aontu leader Peadar Toibin said no one was questioning the quality of the hospital.

He said the additional 1.5 billion euro it has cost to build has “come from the pockets of hard-working Irish citizens and taxpayers”.

“It’s not a victimless crime as well. The opportunity cost of that 1.5 billion euros would have actually paid for over 4,500 homes in this country. It would have housed up to 18,000 people, more than the number of people who are currently homeless.

“But Tanaiste, you are the blame-shifting expert in this country. Simon ‘it wasn’t me’ Harris.”

He raised previous quotes from Mr Harris that he was not responsible for signing the contract that underpinned the construction of the Dublin hospital.

“This contract lacks an enormous amount of detail within it, which has allowed it to become a blank cheque for the contractor, it is designed to fail from the start,” Mr Toibin said.

He added that “inertia, waste and blame-shifting are the characteristics of this Government”.

Mr Harris said he was responsible for bringing the proposal to Cabinet and recommending they proceed, and would be responsible for “a world-class facility” and “transforming children’s healthcare”.

“Nobody gets everything right in politics and a lot of lessons have been learned,” he said.