David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sick of all of the failures as well, Mr. Gunning, in relation to this fiasco, which is what the children's hospital has turned into. I am sick of the fact that we have 14 completion dates that have come and gone. In fact, there have been 17 in total, if we are being honest. I am sick of the fact the costs have escalated where it is now €2.2 billion and will be potentially more. I am also sick that children will not have access to the state-of-the-art services they need. I would much prefer to be here today talking about a state-of-the-art hospital that revolutionises healthcare for children. That is what I want to be talking about, yet here we are on groundhog day.

As was said earlier, the opening statement given by the board is almost a carbon copy of the one we were given last year. Nothing much has changed. There are the same issues in relation to the contractor not resourcing the project, rooms not completed and so on. It is a source of frustration. Mr. Gunning made a number of very serious allegations in his opening statement in relation to the contractor. By the way, it is not our job as a committee to adjudicate on any of that. That will be ultimately done through the courts, I imagine. He said the contractor is using a tactic to exert pressure and extract additional resources. The Minister for Health made the same allegation in his letter. Am I right that the outstanding claims valued by the contractor amount to over €800 million?