The uncertainty around the completion date and possible overspend relating to the National Children’s Hospital, while “people are struggling”, has been criticised by TDs.
It comes after a committee was told that costs for the National Children’s Hospital could top two billion euro.
Representatives from the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), appointed in 2013 to design and build Ireland’s “state-of-the-art” new children’s hospital, revealed that just 27 rooms had been completed when 3,000 should have been completed by now.
Chief officer of the NPHDB David Gunning said that of the 1.433 billion euro in expenditure that had been approved for the construction of the hospital, to date 1.325 billion euro has been spent.
He said that 2,175 claims have been raised by the contractor BAM up until the end of June this year, worth an estimated 756 million euro.
1,478 claims had been decided, at a value of 14 million euro, and worth less than 2% of the overall contract value.
Mr Gunning confirmed that he had sought additional funding for the project, which the government has to consider.
“Hundreds of millions of more money was sought over the last number of weeks, hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money when people are struggling and there’s a huge amount of waste on this project,” Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane said.
The health spokesperson said that “loads of lessons have to be learned for future projects, but right now, we have to deal with this crisis that we have of far too much money being spent and no certainty in relation to this project”.
He told RTE’s Six One News that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly seemed absent as an “unseemly row” breaks out between the board and the contractors.
Social Democrat TD Roisin Shortall said it was “entirely unsatisfactory” that details had not been provided on the final cost or the completion date.
“The longer that the contract takes to fulfil, the more additional costs involved in that, the greater the level of inflation costs that have to be factored in,” she told RTE’s News at One.
Mr Gunning told the Oireachtas Media Committee on Wednesday that it was “very difficult” to provide a completion date without a progress update from BAM, which he said was “unacceptable”.
Based on the most recent update, the substantial completion date is May 2024, which is 21 months after the completion date of August 2022.
He said that there may be “further slippage” of the completion date depending on that latest update, and the rate at which work is being carried out.
“BAM’s monthly billing should approximate to 15 million euros. In the last number of months, they are below 10 million euros,” he said.
“What this looks like from an actual output perspective is illustrated by examining BAM’s progress on rooms completed. Based on BAM’s commitments, 3,000 rooms should have been completed by now; to date, 27 rooms have been deemed complete.
“Furthermore upon inspection, these 27 rooms presented a large number of snags.”
In a statement, BAM said it “categorically rejects any allegations of under-performance and under-resourcing” on the New Children’s Hospital.
“Any suggestion that BAM is deliberately not committing adequate resources to the project or is in any way slowing down delivery of the hospital is untrue.
“As the Board told the Committee today, the tireless work of BAM, its project staff and supply chain partners has driven the build phase to more than 85% completion to date.”
BAM confirmed it will submit a revised programme of works for the final stage of building by next week.
“Revisions to the design of the hospital have been numerous, ongoing and challenging throughout and have added significantly to the required scope of work.
“The additional work generated as a result of these changes is not reflected in the Board’s assertion that BAM has only completed 67% of its planned activity in the past year.”
It added: “BAM has engaged extensively with the Board throughout this project. We remain in constant contact and will keep the Board fully appraised of all aspects of the build including challenges as they arise.
“We welcome the Board’s commitment to the Health Committee today to engage closely with us in the immediate future.”
