National children’s hospital may not receive patients until 2026, PAC hears

The Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard suggestions that the long-delayed new national children’s hospital may not receive patients until early 2026.

The latest date for substantial completion of the project supplied by BAM, the main contractor, is the end of October next year, with a fit-out after that date set to take at least six months.

However, PAC chair Brian Stanley suggested the performance to date by BAM, allied with a longer commissioning period of up to nine months, could see the timeline for the first patients moved forward again into early 2026.

The committee heard that on average, BAM was hitting 65-66 per cent of its monthly performance targets, and that a “significant improvement” would be needed from the Dutch-headquartered construction giant in order to hit the October 2024 deadline.

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Mr Stanley asked, based on performance to date, whether a more realistic timeline for opening the hospital based on performance to date would be early 2026. “It’s a possibility, I guess,” David Gunning, the chief executive of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) responded.

PAC were also told that a new budget for the long-delayed national children’s hospital will be submitted to the Government in the coming weeks, with the project due to bust its allocated budget by the end of the year.

While there were “encouraging signs” and “significant improvements” at the project, with signs the new timeline is “achievable”, no guarantees could be given that a new target for completion of the project would be met, Mr Gunning said.

He told the Sinn Féin TD for Louth Imelda Munster: “I think the optimism has been beaten out of all of us in relation to this project.”

The NPHDB confirmed that a new date for substantial completion of the project, of October 29th, 2024, had been given to to the NPHDB by BAM, the lead contractor on the project, after which a commissioning process taking at least six months would follow, according to Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), which will run the hospital.

This suggests the hospital will not be open until summer 2025, the committee heard. Earlier in the day, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar acknowledged that the tentative opening date could “slip again”.

“Originally it [the opening date] was 2016 and let’s not forget the original plan to build this was refused planning permission. So this is going on a very long time. But I think we’re finally getting to the point where this is going to be for real. You know, perhaps in 18 months time, Irish children will be in a state of the art hospital, one the best paediatric hospitals in the world, and it’s going to transform things.”

The Taoiseach said he had been frustrated that it had taken so long for the hospital to become a reality. “But it is coming. And it’s going to be such a sea change in the quality of healthcare for our children.”

Of the new programme which contains the October 2024 date for substantial completion, Mr Gunning told the PAC: “Our initial assessment is that this is an achievable programme.” However, he told Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy he could not give a guarantee it would be met.

The new programme is now being assessed to see if it is compliant with the contract, Mr Gunning said, but he told Fine Gael’s Alan Dillon that following an “enormous amount of interaction” with BAM there had been an increase in resources at the project and “we are seeing behaviours on site that we welcome and give us some confidence ... things have improved”.

The HSE and the Department of Health have been given an updated figure for the expected cost of the NCH project – which was originally budgeted for a total of €1.733 billion – but it has remained a closely guarded secret.

Alan Kelly, the Labour TD for Tipperary, suggested the final budget for the project could edge towards €2.5 billion, and asked if any of the witnesses before the committee would disagree that it would be north of €2 billion – to which he received no response.

Mr Kelly said there wasn’t a “snowball’s chance” of the hospital being operational in 2025.

Derek Tierney, a senior civil servant in the Department of Health, told PAC that he hoped an update on the budget would be ready to send to Cabinet by the end of October or very early next month.

The committee heard that the approved budget that has been sanctioned would be reached by the end of the year, with only €71 million left from the initial capital allocation of €1.433 billion. PAC also heard that the €300 million commissioning budget had also been raised, but CHI chief executive Eilis Hardiman said she could not indicate by how much until a new figure had been given to the Government.

The committee sought to probe how much the NPHDB could be on the hook for arising from thousands of claims for cost overruns made by BAM. Under the contract, claims are assessed by an employer’s representative or settled through an agreed mediation – so far, just over €641 million in claims had been adjudicated on by the employer’s representative, but had only resulted in additional claims of €16.7 million being paid out, he said, alongside another €1.9 million through the mediation process.

Out of 2,379 claims, 28 had been settled through mediation, Mr Gunning told the committee, with 1,610 addressed through the employer’s representative. There are significant claims that remain to be settled, he indicated, with at least one claim worth €100 million with 17 claims accounting for €628 million of the total.

The committee also heard the NPHDB had been hit with a penalty of almost €1 million by the Revenue Commissioners over an issue where it had misallocated tax paid under an incorrect category, although the figure paid had been correct.