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

The witnesses are welcome. No one disputes the value of the hospital. What is at issue is the cost over and above what was originally estimated and how we keep the costs down. The Committee of Public Accounts will see the ultimate cost. We are concerned about real time as opposed to historical issues. This is part of the reason we are having this meeting.

Going back to the statement Mr. Gunning made in February, I want to speak about construction inflation. He referred to expenditure until 31 December 2019. He gave us a statement and said by way of example that at the end of December 2019 the contractor had progressed 8.5% of the work by value when it should have been progressed by 22%. The contractor is responsible. The delay continued to grow month by month. The contractor is responsible for some of the delays by virtue of not having sufficient staff on site. This was prior to the pandemic. It was part of the contract. The longer this goes on the more likely it is to accrue construction inflation or add it to the ultimate cost.

We also see the site was shut down for seven weeks due to the pandemic but the contractor did not come back for 15 weeks. I presume the staff were paid a wage subsidy or a pandemic unemployment payment in that time so there was a double cost. What kind of counterclaims are being put together on the other side of the contract? We hear about the claims the contractor is making. Contracts are a two-way process. What is being done on the other side regarding delays and where the contractor is not keeping up its side of the bargain?