Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 March 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

National Children's Hospital: Discussion with Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

Mr. Robert Watt:

We have many; not enough, it would seem, given our record. There was a significant debate which I have set out. I am in danger of repeating myself here. Significant issues were raised repeatedly with the Department of Health in the run-up to the decision in 2017. It was our understanding that we had a final tender price which was going to be close to the final bill here and that turned out not to be the case. I have set out why I think that is. Mr. O'Brien, who is the expert, will confirm this. We had to learn lessons from it and it has implications for how we manage projects. I have not spent the past eight weeks or longer since this issue came up among the other challenges we face finding out who did what, when and how. I have been working with the Minister, as I was asked to do, to set out what this means for the delivery of this facility, and what it means for the capital allocations for next year and this year, and then-----

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