Mr. John Pollock:

We have been invited to attend the Committee of Public Accounts to assist the committee in its examination of the annual accounts of the national paediatric hospital development board for the year ended 31 December 2012. As set out in the accounts, a number of significant developments took place in 2012 which impacted the work of the development board and the Comptroller and Auditor General has referred to some of these. In particular, these were the refusal by An Bord Pleanála of the planning application for the children's hospital on the Mater site, which took place in February 2012, the subsequent decision by Government to locate the children's hospital at the St. James's site in November 2012, and the expiry of the term of appointment of the members of the national paediatric hospital development board in December 2012 and their replacement in January 2013 with a transitional board.

The total expenditure for the year 2012 was €3.36 million. This can be summarised under the following headings. The business services team received €1.47 million, the project management services team received €0.13 million, the integrated design team received €0.34 million and administration and other costs including payroll were €1.42 million, giving a total expenditure of €3.36 million. The board had 1.5 whole time equivalence at the end of 2012. Other than these, the day-to-day work of the board in 2012 was carried out through the business services, project management and integrated design teams rather than through additional, directly hired staff. The 2012 balance sheet includes asset values at €39.98 million in regard to the planning and development work for the children's hospital plan for the Mater hospital campus. This value relates to a cumulated expenditure in the period 2007-12.

The current board of the national paediatric hospital development board chaired by Mr. Tom Costello was announced in August 2013 and commenced familiarising itself with the overall project details including the 2012 accounts. On page 14 of the 2012 accounts, note 3, identifies that arising from the refusal of planning on the Mater site and the Government decision to change the location to St. James's Hospital site, that the board is of the opinion that the assets of the development board are now impaired and that a detailed asset impairment review process is required. The development board initiated a process in 2014 to review and analyse the asset impairment. This work is nearing completion and is part of the 2013 accounts. A draft has been submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General, as he has alluded to, for approval. On 16 October, the development board wrote to the Department of Health and the HSE setting out details of the process that was undergone for their consideration and sanction. A response is pending. This is in accordance with public financial procedures. We hope to have concluded the asset impairment process and to be in a position to finally sign off and submit the 2013 accounts to the Minister for Health within the next few weeks.

As requested by the Committee of Public Accounts, we set out in our briefing document details of expenditure since 2012 which can be summarised as the expenditure in the year ending 2013 was €1.7 million and the expenditure in the current year to August 2014 is €1.76 million. The current project status is that, as of August 2014, the design team for the new children's hospital at the St. James's Hospital campus led by BDP architects has been appointed. A separate design team will be appointed for the design of the two satellite centres in regard to emergency, urgent care and out-patient services. One of these is at Tallaght Hospital on the south side of Dublin and the other at Connolly Hospital on the north side. A planning application for the main children's hospital and both satellite centres is scheduled to be submitted to An Bord Pleanála in June 2015 and, subject to a positive decision, construction will commence in early 2016.