David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. When we hear about the national children’s hospital and when it is talked about in the media, the issues of costs and the timeline inevitably dominate, and I think our guests will accept the reasons for that. There have been cost overruns, it is an expensive project and there is no certainty yet on the timeline for when it will be opened to deliver the services people need. Nevertheless, this is a massive project and the scale of what it will do for children's healthcare cannot be understated. It will be a world-class centre for the treatment of children and for training and education. I would love to get more detail and have a full session of this committee to focus on the additional capacity that will come and the healthcare changes that will arise out of this hospital. If I get a chance, I will ask some of those questions, but we need to get as much clarity as possible on some of the other issues.

I acknowledge Mr. Gunning will not be able to give us definitive costs, as he pointed out in his opening statement. We were here 15 months ago and no matter how many times we ask the question, we are not going to get the answer. Even so, he might be able to shed some light on what he said in his opening statement. He stated that the Government has approved a capital investment of €1.433 billion and that expenditure up to the end of August had amounted to €1.13 billion. Is that correct?