Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and the witnesses. For the public watching, this has been a disaster zone for years. I believe it is the fourth time people involved with the hospital have appeared in front of the committee. For me, this whole project is like a bad episode of "Room to Improve" on speed. That is how bad it is. We collectively need to get into layman's language in setting out where we are at. We have got a national maternity hospital to build. The model used to build the children's hospital cannot be used for that. The idea that the contractor or the builder is separate to the design - the whole phase A and phase B that we have been through historically in this room - is completely nuts and is the baseline for where all the problems are.

I said in 2019 that this would go over €2 billion. The Taoiseach at the time scoffed at it and said I was just creating a bit of chaos. At the last meeting in October, I asked anyone in the room if they believed it would not go over €2 billion. Nobody objected. Would anyone in the room object now? Do any of the witnesses think this will land under €2 billion? I presumed I would get the same answer. When I read back over the transcript from last October, I was reminded that I said "I do not think there is a snowball’s chance of the October deadline [the substantial completion date of October 2024] being met". Mr. Gunning is now saying, without a baseline plan but based on monthly updates, that this will be February 2025. We heard previously from Children's Health Ireland that the commissioning phase would take seven to nine months, which is understandable. If the new date is February 2025 and the commissioning takes seven to nine months, which means approximately 5,000 employees transferring or being recruited, is there a snowball's chance that this will be open in 2025?