Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Health

9:30 am

Photo of Cormac DevlinCormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses. It is good to engage again following our previous engagement in July.

I will stay on the children's hospital and follow up on some of my questions in July. It is clear that we will not get a copy of the report. To an extent, I appreciate why not. When the committee visited the site, it was clear there were all sorts of claims, some of which were legitimate in theory because the design of the project had changed. I can appreciate that. However, Mr. Watt must realise that we, as the Committee on Public Accounts, are very interested, as I am sure he and other Secretaries General, as to what the final cost will be. As I have said previously, this is an essential project. We are in, whether we like it or not. We need a new state-of-the-art children's hospital. However, the Committee on Public Accounts would like to know even a guesstimate of costs.

Regardless of what the report states, it would be helpful to give a ballpark figure to this committee, and ultimately to the public, to say how much the project may cost, subject to legal fees and other charges. Will Mr. Watt give an indication of what percentage of the project is complete?

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