The National Children’s Hospital construction has been expensive and delayed, and the Minister for Children has expressed his understanding of taxpayers’ and parents’ complaints, reports RTE.
Additionally, “huge frustration” was expressed by Roderic O’Gorman inside the Government with the “approach the developer” has taken to the development.
He stated that the hospital must be finished as quickly as feasible and that the developers did not appear to be dedicating enough resources to the project.
Additionally, Mr. O’Gorman stated that while the hospital is still under construction, there is no legal barrier preventing BAM from obtaining future state contracts, reports RTE.
“It’s very hard to defend when a contract has taken so long, when there are significant questions about the approach taken to that contract, that same contractor getting other valuable state contracts,” he said.
He declared his support for the actions that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is suggesting in this area, reports RTE.
Mr. Donnelly proposed in a letter to the Taoiseach on Friday that the State take into account the performance of enterprises on public contracts when awarding new contracts.
“So that the State is not seen to be either a soft touch or to reward poor performance and behaviour,” Mr O’Gorman said, reports RTE.
In his letter, Mr. Donnelly added that initiatives to “exclude suppliers who perform poorly from tendering for future works” require discussion with lawmakers and leaders in Europe.
On Wednesday, the Oireachtas Committee on Health will hear testimony from the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which is in charge of operating the National Children’s Hospital.
RóisÃn Shortall, the Social Democrats’ health spokesperson and a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, stated that the board’s previous appearances had been “quite unsatisfactory”, reports RTE.
The new hospital in Dublin is estimated to have cost more than €2.2 billion and has been under construction since 2017.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Ms Shortall said “it’s been very difficult to get any definitive information from the development board and this project is now ongoing for seven years and it looks like there may be another two years at least before the hospital actually opens. And in relation to cost, of course, we’re still no clearer in relation to what the ultimate cost is going to be. The latest estimate is about €2.24bn, but we were told by the chair of the development board that there’s no certainty that that will stay at that level, so it’s likely to go up even further,” reports RTE.
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