Taoiseach says it would be ‘foolhardy’ to give estimate of final cost of new Children’s Hospital
November 30 2022 05:29 PM
IT would be a mistake to give an estimate for the final cost of the new National Children’s Hospital, the Taoiseach has told the Dáil.
“I am not going into any ballpark figures,” he said in answering Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, who put it to him that the final bill would soar past €2 billion.
Mr Martin said he would not “play the contractor’s game,” saying it would be “foolhardy and wrong to put a figure out there.”
But Mr Martin confirmed that €1.1billion in expenditure had been drawn down to date, and that hundreds of additional claims were in play — with the war in Ukraine and resultant inflation in the background.
The Taoiseach said he recently visited the site and substantial progress had been achieved. “The Government will hold firm on this,” he said.
Ms McDonald said she did not accept the Taoiseach could not tell the people what the hospital would cost, but asked him to say when it would be opened. Mr Martin did not reply, but said construction had begun in 2016.
The contractor was entitled to submit claims, understood to run to 900 applications to a value in excess of €500m, but equally the hospital board was entitled to contest them, he said.
The Government has “an inability to build houses, but clearly you’re not good at building hospitals either,” Ms McDonald said.
“Despite all of this investment, the children of Ireland still don't have their hospital. It was supposed to be open by 2014. Then it was August 2022. And now we're told mid-2024 — ten years after it was supposed to open,” she said.
“The Department of Health seems to believe that there will be additional funding required and the Government is bracing itself for a sharp increase in costs. That will push the final bill for the hospital beyond €2 billion.”
Mr Martin said many of the claims had not been substantiated. “You've asked me to give an assessment of the ultimate cost. That would be a mistake.
“If you're interested in cost you don't announce to the contractor the level at which you want to go. That is the wrong approach to take.
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“I'm not going into any ballpark figures, I have intention of that. It wold only I think be of disadvantage to the taxpayer and disadvantage to the State.
“But what I am very clear on is that we do need this hospital and we do need to create a first class facility. It will address up to 17,000 outpatient and 25,000 Emergency attendances.”
Ms McDonald said: “This whole saga has been an exercise of kicking the can down the road, and God only knows where it will end up, nearly three decades since the idea of the Children's Hospital was first proposed.
“After €1.1 billion already spent, the Government still doesn't know what the final cost will be — or when the hospital will be completed.”
The country had witnessed “an ongoing saga of bungles, incompetence and broken promises,” she said. “Meanwhile, we have 100,000 children on hospital waiting lists.”