The delayed construction of the new National Children’s Hospital is running “out of control” with no-one being held accountable, Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty has claimed.
The plan to build the paediatric hospital in Dublin has been mired in controversy in recent years over where it would be sited, how much it will cost and the repeated delays to when it will be in operation.
Last week it emerged the planned handover date from the contractor BAM is to be pushed back from March next year to May, while the cost of the hospital is spiralling.
Mr Doherty said the cost of the hospital went from €650 million to €2 billion to become one of the most expensive in the world.
He said there are 100,000 children on waiting lists, and accused Health Minister Stephen Donnelly during Leaders’ Questions of “being asleep at the wheel”.
“It is clear that there is nobody in charge of this project and that this project has become a runaway train,” he said.
“The Minister for Health is clearly asleep at the wheel in relation to this issue.
“This hospital when you (Taoiseach Leo Varadkar) were Minister for Health was supposed to cost us €650 million, it has now got a price tag of two billion euro. Costs have more than tripled.
“We were supposed to have a national children’s hospital years ago. Then it became August 2020, then it’s May 2024 and now the board says we can’t even guarantee that timeframe.
“Once again, the public are looking on, and they’re seeing a complete mess and a government that is holding nobody to account in relation to the mismanagement of hundreds of millions of euro in relation to taxpayers’ money.”
Responding, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the hospital has been delayed and costs rising due a number of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and inflation.
He said the initial cost of the hospital in 2015 was “substantially under-estimated”.
However, he took issue with the two billion figure as “misleading”, saying that also takes into account two urgent care centres which are open and operating, the decommissioning of Crumlin and Temple Street and a failed attempt to build at the site of the Mater Hospital 20 years ago.
He said the budget for the children’s hospital is €1.4 billion euro, and it is 85 per cent complete.
Of that, 1.3 billion euro has been drawn down so far, but the budget will have to be increased.
“Infrastructure projects like these are huge, they’re complex and … we see this in projects of this scale internationally,” he said.
“But I want to reassure the House that everything possible is being done to ensure this project is completed as soon as possible.”
Mr Varadkar also said government is “standing up to the contractor” over some claims for additional money, adding “almost all of which we’re fighting on have been ruled in our favour”.
He said they expect the hospital to be completed next year, and open to patients towards the end of next year or early 2025 at the latest.
The Taoiseach said it will be an “incredible state-of-the-art hospital, one of the best in the world”, adding “nobody will be sorry that it was built when people see it”.
