LAST UPDATE | 20 Jun 2023
TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR says he is satisfied with the work of the board of the National Children’s Hospital, stating the facility will be open for patients in 2024.
The board today rejected a suggestion that faults in the ceiling of several operating theatres could set the project back “tens of millions” of euro.
An issue that has been identified with 11 operating theatres is expected to be raised in the Dáil later today in the most recent controversy for a project that has repeatedly come to public attention.
Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane said today he understands there is a “major fault in 11 of the operating theatres, which has an impact on the air ventilation systems”.
He suggested that the fix could delay the hospital development and cost tens of millions.
However, the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) has described the situation as requiring only “minor works” and asserted it would not affect the hospital’s completion date.
In a statement, the NPDHB said that “there has been no material change to the design on the new children’s hospital”.
“The potential works in the 11 operating theatres are minor works – they are not on the critical path,” it said.
“The NPHDB has been aware of the potential issue since May 2022. It is being addressed in a timely and appropriate manner.
“The change, if instructed to BAM, will involve the movement of 4 ceiling grilles in each of the 11 theatres. This will not cost ‘tens of millions of Euro’, as is being claimed, and is not expected to have an impact on the completion date of the hospital.”
The board said that construction contractor BAM has “been instructed to continue works in accordance with the current design – and this potential issue with be addressed at the appropriate time”.
“There are 5,000 rooms to be completed within the hospital. BAM is being asked to progress works in all areas as quickly as possible – including in the Operating Theatres.”
However, the board said the “critical issue of concern” relates to BAM.
“BAM has still not provided a compliant Programme of Works. BAM was due to provide an updated Programme in February 2023. This has still not been provided and therefore BAM is in breach of contract. As a result, the NPHDB has advised BAM that it intends to issue an Employer Claim to withhold 15% of the payments due to BAM.
“BAM continues to submit large volumes of claims on the new children’s hospital project – 2,122 claims up to the end of May 2023. To date, of the determined claims made by the Employer’s Representative, less than 2% of the value of the claims submitted by BAM has been awarded in its favour. Including settled disputes this is equivalent to approx. €13m or 1.4% of the contract value.”
Speaking to reporters today, Varadkar said he anticipates the hospital to be completed in 2024 and handed over to the government in that year.
It will take a number of months for it to be commissioned, but he anticipates the first patients will receive care in the hospital in 2024.
In relation to the issues relating to the operating theatres, he said:
“I think it’s fair to say that the board has issued a statement on that today which is very clear. And I have to say I’m satisfied with the work that they’re doing, it’s important. It’s a difficult job to build, what is going to be one of the best healthcare facilities in the world.”
He said the work is now nearing completion and it is going to be an “amazing facility for the children of Ireland once it’s up and running”.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, David Cullinane said that he understood changes could take up to 12 months to complete to resolve the problem in the operating theatres.
“What I also know is that the Board knew about in May 2022, and that an external company was brought in to look at the ventilation system and warned that there was difficulties and problems”.
“It took 12 months for the Board to act to stop the works and to establish what they are now saying are workshops to look at the extent of the works that needs to be done,” Cullinane said.
“The source that I spoke to is somebody at the heart of this project who tells me that this is very, very serious and that it will add potentially tens of millions to the cost of the Children’s Hospital.
“What we’re talking about here are very, very sensitive theatres. The ceilings involve gas pipes, oxygen pipes, a live sprinkler system, electrical pipes. This isn’t repainting a ceiling. This will require very substantial works.
“My source is telling me that it could take the workshops potentially up to three months even to figure out what to do.
“It raises fundamental questions for the board but also fundamental questions for the government, who, in my view, have dropped the ball.”
“I would expect the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health and the Cabinet to be across the detail at his hospital, to be across issues like this and to make sure that when something like this happens, that there is immediate corrective action taken. I’m very concerned about this.”
Social Democrat’s children’s spokesperson Jennifer Whitmore, speaking outside Leinster House this morning, called fro ” a clear and comprehensive statement” from Health Minister Stephen Donnelly “detailing exactly what is wrong with the hospital, when it will be completed, how much is it is going to cost”.
“We need full transparency with this projected and we have not got it to date,” she said.
The Wicklow TD added that “the people who are being failed by this are the children of the state who do not have the state of the art health services and health system that they deserve”.
In 2017, the Children’s Hospital project was forecast to cost €983 million. The following year, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Dáil that it would cost €1.4 billion.
That increased again to €1.73 billion in 2019, while one opposition TD said he believed it was “highly unlikely” that the total cost would be less than €2 billion.
Last year, Project Director of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) Phelim Devine told The Journal that there were “huge pressures on costs and people are aware of it”.
The project had accounted for inflation of around 4% but by that point in 2022 inflation had soared up to 7% as consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in almost 22 years.
“There are going to be additional costs associated with inflation. There’s other external pressures that are outside our control,” Devine said.
“Covid has impacted the project; it delayed the project and there will be costs associated with that,” he said.
“The other pressure is there’s a shortage of resources in the industry. The industry is at peak, you can’t get people, and there’s obviously the big impact of Brexit and Covid and the Ukraine war.
“Steel has gone through the roof, plasterboard has gone up. Everything, every material has gone up, because of the logistics, the cost of fuel, the cost of moving it around – it all comes from different countries. That’s the pressures that we’re facing.”
With reporting by Mia Douglas and Christina Finn
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say