Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I agree with the Deputy that the new children's hospital will be transformative when completed and will represent a significant step change in tertiary care for children in this country. The opening of the two satellite centres has already had an impact. I visited the site last year when I was Taoiseach and there is a greater degree of completion now than there was some years ago. Since the Government came into office, it has had a very clear focus on the hospital. That focus is about getting the hospital complete but also getting value for money and ensuring there is a rigorous process in terms of cost. I respect the Deputy's right, of course, to raise these issues on a continuing basis - that is his job as Opposition spokesperson - but in the public debate and the history of this entire project, in terms of the politicisation of the hospital or issues around cost and so on, we have to be careful we are not playing into somebody else's hands. I have been adamant from the outset, when I became Taoiseach two and a half years ago, that we had to follow a rigorous process here.

Yes, there is no question there have been tensions. There has been a real difficulty here and perhaps one would not start out again if one were starting to build a new hospital. The last thing we should ever do in regard to public contracts is start putting costs out there. We should tender and see what comes in. Claims are being made now but the claims are being challenged every step of the way, and that is right. There should not be compromise on contesting those claims. I mean that, and if that means delay, so be it. Just 2% is the outturn of all the claims made so far, because they are being contested through mediation. We could cut corners and say let us not contest these claims and give more, to hurry up and accelerate the completion, but that game is over. That is not going to happen and it has not happened over the past two and a half years. The contractors have responsibilities, as does the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. It is charged with delivering this project. Painful and unsatisfactory as it is in terms of completion timeframes, we need to stick with the process and not create leverage for anybody to see weaknesses on the State side whereby the State is somehow going to compromise its position in a mad political rush to get this completed because it might not look well if we do not get it completed before a certain timeframe.

I do not approve of that approach at all. We have to be hard and fair. We want the hospital to be completed, but if claims are being made that are not sustainable, they have to be tested. That means arbitration and mediation, and that is slow. Covid-19 and various issues have delayed the project. By definition, every building project in the past two years has gone up in costs, as we know through housing and everything else. Those costs are going to feed their way into the children's hospital, as will costs caused by delay. From our perspective, we want the hospital built. It will be transformative when it is built for children's quality of care and the physical environment of children's care. We just have to stick with it. The development board is working with the contractors to get this done, all the time making sure, from the point of view of the public interest, that value for money is a key priority, that there is cost containment and that we do not just surrender to every claim made.

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