Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will set out the context. Everyone wants the national children's hospital. There have been disputes, but none has been about whether there is a need for it. There was a complete understanding and acceptance that we would pay for it collectively through taxation, but people hate being taken for fools, and that is exactly how they feel. They expected the hospital to be delivered within a timeframe and within, or near enough to, budget, and that if it was not delivered within budget, there would be a rational explanation for whatever extras were being costed in, for example.

We have raised a number of issues. For instance, there was a two-phase tendering process. While I accept the point made about 2016 and costing, when it came to considering whether to retender for the second phase, which was an option, the committee was told before lunch that doing so could have added two years to the delivery time. We all understand that it needs to be delivered yesterday, so was that option really considered when the two-phased approach to delivering the hospital in a timely way was adopted? The option was there in theory, but it was not there in practice if it was going to add two years to the timeline. Actually, I would like to see where that figure comes from.

There were points of no return.

One was obviously the point of no return once the decision was made to go with the site. It then got driven to a point where we were told it was a point of no return. In the autumn we were at a point of no return in regard to the timeline for delivering it. Is that two-stage process really a two-stage process, when we are trying to deliver a project within time? It does not strike me that it is.