LAST UPDATE | 13 Feb

THE GOVERNMENT HAS approved an additional €500 million in funding for developing the new National Children’s Hospital, bringing the total cost to more than two billion euro.

The new funding brings the previous budget of €1.73 billion – which was already well above initial spending forecasts – to €2.24 billion.

A sum of €1.88 billion will be spent on design, build and equipment costs and €360 million on integrating and transitioning services to the new hospital.

The hospital works could be completed by the end of this year and open for patients in mid-2025, the Department of Health has said today.

The latest increase in funding  is earmarked for addressing issues identified by a PWC report in 2019, which said there were multiple weaknesses in the set-up, planning, budget, execution and governance of the project.

The 2019 report noted several risks had the potential to place further cost pressure on the approved budget, including contractor entitlements and inflation in the construction sector.

“Project costs, like other areas of the construction sector and wider society, have also been impacted by other external pressures including the impacts to supply chains arising from the pandemic and other global events such as the war in Ukraine and Brexit,” the Department of Health said in a statement this afternoon.

Cabinet ministers approved the increase to the budget today.

After the Cabinet meeting, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that the funding “will assist in achieving the opening of what will be a world-class hospital”.

“I acknowledge that a significant amount of money is being spent on this project, but it must not be forgotten that this is a hospital built to serve children and their families for the next 100 years. The new hospital building is unprecedented in scale and technological advancement,” he said.

Construction on the main hospital building is 90% complete.

‘Significant issues’

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said that the country knows the project has cost more than it was originally expected to when the initial process began.

However, he said the government is “making every possible effort through the Board to get value for the taxpayer and to ensure the project is delivered in as timely and as affordable a way as possible”.

Donohoe said he believes the value of the project will be evident once the hospital opens but that he accepts there has been “significant issues” along the way around cost and transparency.

Minister Stephen Donnelly told RTÉ that there will be no further memo brought forward for more funding for the hospital under the current government.

The health minister also said that if BAM meets its schedule to complete the hospital, it would be finished by October and followed by a commissioning period of at least six months before patients can be admitted.