Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health, David Cullinane TD, has said that children are paying the price as a result of the government completely losing control of the National Children’s Hospital project fiasco.
He said that as 17 completion deadlines have come and gone, with taxpayers on the hook for an ever-growing overpend of at least €1.5bn, that Taoiseach Simon Harris and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly need to get a grip of this saga and establish a completion date and final cost that are actually believable.
Teachta Cullinane said:
“This is Groundhog Day. We have now seen 17 completion dates for the National Children’s Hospital, which we now know will be the most expensive hospital in the world, come and go.
“It is now over nine years since the then Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said that the hospital would be open in 2020.
“The most recent opening date provided was for the summer of 2025, yet here we are, as the latest Fine Gael government enters its dying days, and that has been missed again and we are now looking at a new completion date of 2026.
“Given the gross incompetence of this project under Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s watch from start to finish, nobody can have confidence that this latest date will be met either.
“As this fiasco rumbles on and on, it is the children of this state and their families who pay the price of a hospital that is now at least €1.5bn over budget, with that figure expected to rise further.
“The reality is that the dysfunction at the heart of this project has its origins in the original contract and is a product of failure on the part of former Ministers for Health Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and now Stephen Donnelly.
“It has been a calamity of errors.
“Under their watch, every completion date given has come and gone.
“Every cost projection has been exceeded.
“Every deadline set has been missed.
“It is impossible to have any confidence in the information we are receiving on costs or delivery. The truth is we have no idea what the final cost will be and when this hospital will finally open its doors.
“While the taxpayer is on the hook for billions, those losing out the most are the tens of thousands of children waiting for care and those children who have procedures and appointments cancelled due to a lack of capacity.
“There is a responsibility on the main contractor to deploy adequate resources to the project and complete the hospital as quickly as possible.
“But the ultimate responsibility rests with the government, and in particular Taoiseach Simon Harris and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.
“They are privy to the regular programmes of work updates by the hospital board, but what have they been doing to ensure this hospital is finally delivered?
“The Taoiseach and Minister for Health need to get a grip of this saga and establish a completion date and final cost that are actually believable.
“Completing and opening this hospital needs to be a priority for the sake of the children who desperately need improved services.”
