Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In April 2016, the then Minister for Health and current Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, stated on the "Six One News" that the total cost of the project would be €650 million. He stated that included the satellites, VAT, a contingency for inflation and a general contingency for unforeseen events. In two years, the cost has gone from €650 million to more than €1.7 billion, which is more than €1 billion in additional funding. Yesterday in the Chamber, the Taoiseach confirmed that the €1.7 billion could increase even further.

Imagine if someone contracted a builder to build a nice house, where the agreed price including contingencies, inflation and everything else was €400,000. Imagine if the builder started work on the foundations but came back to the client two years later, stated he or she had done the detailed design, inflation turned out to be higher than previously thought and, therefore, the client would not get anything extra but rather the same house - with no extra bedrooms and no larger - and instead of costing €400,000 it would now cost €1 million. When the client paid the €1 million, he or she would pay twice as much per bedroom as the most expensive house of this kind that anyone has ever built. There is a guy in Sweden who built a house like this and it is the most expensive of its kind ever built. Per bedroom, the hospital will cost twice as much as his. There is not a man or woman in Ireland who would not ask what is going on and tell the builder to stop the work, take the workers off the site, lock the gates and do a full review of what has happened.

When were the Minister and the Department informed that the total cost had risen to €1.7 billion? When it was discovered that this had happened, which is the equivalent of someone agreeing a price of €400,000 for a house but being told that it would actually cost €1 million, did anyone suggest that things should be stopped while a review took place to figure out what on earth was going on?