Ms Tracey Conroy:

Senator Colm Burke is right about the children's hospital itself. This project has had a chequered and difficult history. We have been talking about building this national children's hospital for decades. Lessons were learned in the context of the project's previous history, particularly leading up to the failure of the planning permission at the Mater site. Those lessons were learned and addressed in the appointment in August 2013 of two competency-based boards; the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, with the competencies required to design, build and equip the hospital, and what was then the children's hospital group administrative board, which acted as the client for the build board and was responsible for planning the integration of services. That has been known as Children's Health Ireland since the enactment and part-commencement of the Children's Health Act 2018.

While I acknowledge I am speaking in the context of significant cost overruns that are of grave concern, in fairness, if we chart the history of the project from the appointment of those boards in 2013 to where we are now, there have been very significant achievements and progress in the timelines of the project. I refer to the design, the key milestone of the achievement of the planning permission and the start of construction since the Government decision in April 2017. All of those timelines are now within parameters. The build board is on time in respect of completing phase A of the project shortly. Phase B will have commenced on site by the end of this month. Mr. Pollock will correct me if that is wrong. The project is on track where the outpatients department, OPD, and urgent care centres are concerned. We are looking forward to completion of the Connolly hospital facility in spring of this year and an opening in July, as well as an opening at Tallaght Hospital in spring of next year. They are very significant milestones.

The enactment of the Children's Health Act 2018 and the establishment of Children's Health Ireland are very significant achievements. We went from having three voluntary children's hospitals, which came together and worked with the Department in a highly collaborative fashion. They practically wrote that legislation with us. It is really elegant legislation that achieves a good balance between accountability and authority and will oversee a radical transformation of children's health services in this country. They are the lessons learned on the project to date. We need to continue to learn lessons, however. The external review on the cost escalation will not just have implications for this project. It will also have learnings for other capital projects.