Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 31 January 2024
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 11 – Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 – Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 – State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - the Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 – Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 – National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 -the Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 – Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised)
Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire agus leis an Aire Stáit as teacht os comhair an choiste inniu agus as ucht na cuir i láthair. I wish to return to an issue I discussed with the Minister on his last visit to the committee, and that is the issue of public procurement and national infrastructure. In many areas, there are significant delays and cost overruns. The Minister and Minister of State will accept that public infrastructure is of real importance to people’s lives, whether it is transport, health, housing and so on. These are the infrastructures on which we depend on a daily basis. Timely delivery of these are exceptionally important for citizens.
The Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service wrote a report at the start of the month. In that report, it warned of delusional optimism which results in delays and budget overruns in respect of mega projects, as it is termed there. It said there is an international and a national example of this. It stated there is a culture of underestimating in advance the time and cost it would take, and that was leading to the other side of the experience of the overruns and time delays as well.
Could the Minister talk through what is being done to prevent that happening and make sure projects are delivered on time and in budget? We are told that the national children’s hospital will be opened in 2025. It is estimated that the cost will be above €2 billion. The Taoiseach, who is leader of the Minister’s party, stated that, short of a meteor hitting it, the hospital would be open by 2020 at a cost of €700 million. In the context of the Government and public services, does the phrase “delusional and over-optimistic” relate to those types of overruns? I can think of many other examples as well. For example, the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, promised 700 rapid-builds in June 2022. The majority of those have not been built yet. About €300 million has been spent on metro north but not a shovel has been put into the ground. The people of Midleton have had their livelihoods severely impacted during the recent floods. The process started for that project back in 2015. The talk is there may be a planning application going in at the end of this year. How do we make sure we get these important projects delivered faster?
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