Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is happy enough. Correspondence No. 594B, from the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, dated 19 May, encloses correspondence from the Minister of Public Expenditure and Reform detailing the information before it. As discussed, the Minister is scheduled to appear before the committee on 16 June. We note and publish that item. I wanted to bring that to members’ attention.

Correspondence No. 595B from Ms Katherine Licken, Secretary General of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, dated 19 May 2021, provides information requested by the committee on protected disclosures annual reports. We have already considered this topic. Do any members want to address it directly? Are members okay with correspondence No. 595B?

Correspondence No. 601B, which I referred to earlier, from Mr. David Gunning, chief officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, dated 19 May, provides information requested by the committee arising from our meeting with the board on 9 February. We requested this information on 16 February. At this stage, it is well over two months overdue. We note and publish this item. Regarding this item of correspondence, No. 601B, from Mr. Gunning, chief officer, I do not know about the rest of the members, but I find this process totally unsatisfactory, that he answers and comes back on a number of issues we raised. He raised an issue and quoted me as saying, "As soon as the findings of that report are available, I ask that they be forwarded to the secretariat of the committee." He answers that but he said that the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board’s analysis has been submitted to the Department of Health for independent analysis and scrutiny.

Members will recall that last November, we asked members of this board and a representative from the Department of Health to come before us. They subsequently requested that the meeting be delayed until January because their report on progress of the children’s hospital project was not ready, nor was there any indication of the final cost. We put it back to January and they subsequently looked for it to be deferred to February, which we did. Board members came before us on 11 February and at that meeting, they promised to have the report before us in March. We are now sailing close to the month of June, halfway through the year, and we still do not have that report, and we do not have that board in front of us. Board members were due to come before us two weeks ago, but they were not in a position to do so because the report was not ready.

The process has dragged on for an inordinate length of time. I note that one of the central issues we raised with them on the day there were before us was in relation to claims made by the main contractor. Many of us were surprised to hear that there were in the region of 700 financial claims being made by the main contractor against the board. The reply in this correspondence stated that 450 of them entered a dispute management process. Since the day they were before us, 100 extra claims have been made. The correspondence goes on to state that there are now four cases, there were three, before the High Court and that the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board initiated High Court proceedings relating to the contractor disputing the validity of phase B. The board has initiated that case. It is still of great concern.

The other issue that I am concerned about is that the position of chair has not been filled. It is stated in the correspondence, that the previous chair, Fred Barry, indicated in January that he was to resign, and he bowed out in February. It is understood – there is nothing definite about this - that the Public Appointments Service will work through the applications in the coming weeks and should a suitable candidate be identified from this process the names will be forwarded to the Minister for Health for consideration for appointment. It is very much up in the air at the moment. I am very concerned about the whole project.

A number of members have indicated that they want to come in on this. Do members want to comment on this piece of correspondence, No. 601B from the National Paediatric Hospital? Are there any members who want to comment on this or are they happy with it? Board members are due to come back before us. I ask members to be mindful of the fact that correspondence No. 601B came in late to us. It does not give us much comfort.

Correspondence No. 546C is from Councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy-----