Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are dealing with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board and the costs relating to the new children's hospital in Dublin. We are joined by officials from the Department of Health. Before the suspension, we asked for a breakdown of the €1.7 billion expected cost, as of today, of completing the project. That is the cost as of today and it will be another issue if further costs arise later. As of today, the cost is €1.7 billion. I will read for the record now the breakdown of those costs. The first item is €14.5 million in decanting costs in relation to the site. The second item is aspergillus, which is about infection control in the hospital during the course of construction. That is €5.8 million. The cost of the main contractor, BAM, is €550 million. The Jones Group gets €177 million. Mercury, another contractor, gets €157 million. There is an extra contractor providing lifts. Those four items add up to €890 million and represent the main construction costs. The outpatient and urgent care centres in Tallaght and Connolly hospitals add up to €53.4 million. That comes to €963.7 million and VAT is €130.1 million. That gives gross construction costs on the project of €1,093,800,000.

Non-construction costs are as follows. Equipping the hospital with MRI machines, furniture, scanners, etc., comes to €87.9 million. Planning and development fees and development levies payable to various local authorities come to €13.6 million. The design team fees are €71.3 million. There is a contingency of €51.3 million. The cost of running the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board Company during the project and its legal and professional fees come to €66.04 million. These costs add up to €290.1 million. The gross total, including VAT of €49 million, is €339.1 million. Added to construction costs of €1,093,800,000, that gives the building cost of €1.433 billion.

We then move to other costs outside of that which are being handled by Children's Health Ireland. There is a figure of €18 million for the children's research and innovation centre. Information and communication technology in relation to computers is €97 million. The children's hospital integration programme is €86 million. That involves the integration of the children's hospitals in Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght hospitals. Electronic healthcare records will cost €52 million for the entire project and there is a write-off already paid of approximately €40 million in relation to the Mater Hospital site, which was the original first option but which has not proceeded. Those costs come to €293 million, giving a grand total as of today of €1.7 billion.

We will endeavour to circulate that list as a matter of urgency. That was for the record so that people watching can get a breakdown of the figures for now. Can we agree to note and publish those figures? Agreed. Before the break, Deputy Aylward had commenced. He has a ten minute slot. We will then move back to the other members in the sequence in which they spoke this morning.