Ms Tracey Conroy:

I will answer this question as well, initially at least. Owing to the complexity of the programme and project and the number of stakeholders required to ensure the project is safely delivered, we put in place new governance oversight arrangements, which were agreed by the Government in May 2017. First, the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board has statutory responsibility for the delivery of the capital project. It is headed by an experienced board and is facilitated by a strong executive team and experts, of which the committee was advised last week. This board reports to the HSE and to the Departments on its functions through the children's hospital programme and project governance structures.

As the Chairman has already outlined, the children's hospital programme and project board is chaired by the Secretary General of the Department, as Accounting Officer, and it has responsibility for overseeing the project in its entirety. The children's hospital programme and project steering group has responsibility for the delivery of the project. It is chaired by the deputy director of strategy section, a delegated function from the director general of the HSE. It has responsibility for ensuring that the project is delivered within its parameters.

It is important to say that the various roles of the various parties, namely, the build board - we call it that for shorthand - the children's hospital programme and project board and the children's hospital programme and project steering group all flow from legislation, including the Health Acts, with the respective roles of the Secretary General of the Department as Accounting Officer and the director general as accountable officer. We believe in the Department that these governance structures are appropriate. They were put in place to reflect the move, post the government decision on construction of phase A, from the design process into construction of phase A.

The committee will be aware that as part of the Government decision in December, it requested an external review of the oversight arrangements. These refer to the governance and oversight arrangements of the project as between the Department, the HSE and the build board. The intention is that the review of cost escalation, which will be completed in March, will inform and feed into that review. This will start in March once the first review had been completed.

While we feel that the arrangements are robust, were agreed and considered in close consultation with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and were approved by Government, in the light of the cost overruns here there certainly is a need to have a look at those arrangements to see if there are any weaknesses that need to be identified in the context of the move now to phase B of the project.