MINISTER FOR HEALTH Stephen Donnelly has said speculation on the cost of the National Children’s Hospital is not helpful but that it is going to cost more than the previously sanctioned €1.4 billion.

Speaking to reporters today at the opening of the Ballyboden primary care centre in Dublin, the Minister once again refused to provide a projected final cost or completion date for the long-delayed children’s hospital.

“It’s not helpful for anybody to be honest, to be speculating as to the cost,” Donnelly said before hitting out at Sinn Féin.

“I’ve noted some of the speculation by Sinn Féin. I think Sinn Féin may inadvertently – I don’t believe they’re doing it on purpose – but inadvertently may be being used as pawns to justify some of the delays and some of the overspend. It’s not helpful,” the Minister said.

Referring to the claims the contractor BAM has made for its work on the hospital, which are currently being disputed, Donnelly said just 2% of the claims made so far have been adjudicated in BAM’s favour.

The claims are being adjudicated upon by the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board’s (NPHDB) representative for disputes.

Conflict has been ongoing between the NPHDB and the developer of the hospital, BAM since 2021 over additional construction cost claims worth €756 million.

This is on top of the estimated construction costs of €1.4 billion.

“The position is very clear. The board is acting on all of our behalf to get this project finished as quickly as possible and for an appropriate amount of monies.

“We need to support them in doing that. There is nobody who can accurately say right now what those decisions are going to be in terms of adjudication. And indeed, whether or not either side might decide to escalate that to the court,” Donnelly said.

He added: “We now need to let the dispute resolution mechanisms and the mediation take their course.”

Making reference again to Sinn Féin, Donnelly said: 

“It would be very unhelpful for me or the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste to say ‘we believe the final agreement might be in the following area’, because that will immediately empower certain parties to bid for more money.

“And to be honest, I know Sinn Féin keep asking the question, but I think they fully understand the answer being given.”

Donnelly then said he heard Pearse Doherty “claim in the Dáil earlier this week” that there are “young people emigrating because of the potential cost of the Children’s Hospital”. 

“So this is just politics. This is Sinn Féin trying to make a story out of something that we’ve all fully understood since 2018/2019,” Donnelly said.

The Minister seemed to be referring to a comment Doherty made during leaders’ question on Tuesday when he said the RTÉ scandal and the issues with the Children’s Hospital are the “outworking of that type of insider culture of entitlement and incompetence fostered by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments down through the years”.

Doherty continued: “The broken culture we have here is the reason we have a housing emergency, our health services are creaking at the seams and countless young people are deciding to emigrate, believing they have been forced to do so.”