Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I welcome the witnesses and thank them for coming along this morning.

This project is an emotive project nationally among professionals and the general public. Anybody who has spoken with the parents of sick children over the past 20 years will say always that there is a burning requirement for a modern hospital. In fact, the argument and debate has taken place over the past 20 years with little progress. I mention that as a backdrop to what we are talking about now.

Tendering, particularly in relation to inflation, is a sensitive issue at present. It does not take too much inflation in a particular area to increase suddenly and dramatically the cost of a project. There are one or two questions that I would put.

First, in the number of tenders received, will the witnesses remind me what was the difference between the lowest tender and the highest tender, and the extent to which the specification was observed in each?

Another question relates to the €890 million plus the ancillaries that affect other locations and sites. Is the cost likely to increase further under any of those headings and, if so, to what extent? I refer to the €1.4 billion eventual cost. To what extent can the cost be retained at that?

It is €890 million excluding VAT. I thought there was a clause somewhere that VAT was not chargeable on some State projects. How does that apply to this case? If one is building local authority houses, it does not apply anyway. Maybe we could get clarification. How much would the VAT be? I do not want to get a calculator. It is not too difficult a job but it is a contributory factor.

Were the various bids in any way date conditioned?

In many cases it is usual to specify that a bid will last for a specified time and then there is a question of what it will cost after that time.

Is the project in accord with international norms regarding the specification for hospitals of different categories, A, B, or C, for instance? I ask because if we want a state-of-the-art world-class hospital, and the parents of sick children want nothing less than a world-class hospital, then we must be careful not to dumb it down before it even starts and create a situation where we expect to get it for half price. It will not work that way and we will not get what we are looking for, which is the highest possible standards of care for sick children in the future.

To what extent did the hospital's internal quantity surveyor and evaluation show any discrepancies? Did a discussion take place vis-à-vis the various tenders? Were they compared and if so, how? Was it pointed out that tenders A, B, or C, had more or less than was required and so on?

Was a request made or recognition given to the impact of inflation on various building works, whether it was in construction, electrical works or whatever and if so, what were they? Were they marked as being of a particularly sensitive nature? To what extent were they likely to change over a period of years?

How satisfied was the evaluation team that it was dealing with the best that could be done and that its efforts were not upstaged by any of the bodies involved seeking to increase the cost extent, scale or value of the project beyond what the board itself required?

I am aware that since last July, the group has spent considerable time discussing what would be done next after it discovered the price overrun. By what amount did it overrun in the period between July 2018 and November or December? There definitely was an overrun during that period so was it wise to delay at that stage beyond acknowledging that there were cost increases in excess of what had been anticipated?

Were the cost levels anticipated at every level and potential increases identified at an early stage? I refer especially to the lowest, middle and highest bids. Is the board satisfied that at all times that each body which tendered was ad idem with its intention, namely, to put in place the most cost-effective building and facilities in line with the project's specification and regulations?

I am sorry to link all the questions together but it cannot be helped.