Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Electionitis is definitely diagnosable but is, as of yet, untreatable. I thank Deputy Durkan for his support. Colleagues here and in the wider Oireachtas have a job to do in holding the Government to account, as they should and must do. What has been helpful, and I thank colleagues for this, is that while they have asked tough questions of me and the Government - as they must do and I am sure they will also do so today - the Oireachtas has been unified in shining a light where it needs to be, which is on the contractor meeting its deadlines.

When there is time I will ask Ms Ross to give her thoughts on this because I do not think the committee has heard from the chair of the national paediatric hospital development board to date. Essentially the advice from the board is that this boils down to three things that we need the contractor to do. We need it to do the finishing correctly. There is a massive snagging operation under way and the level of quality required has not been met yet. BAM is a highly experienced contractor. It completes many capital projects on time for the State but that has not been the case here. BAM is more than capable of meeting the quality standards and we need that to happen. The second issue is resourcing. We have information we can share with the committee but the board's estimate is that the project is resourced, in terms of the number of workers on site, at about half of what it should be and this is probably the single biggest contributor to the delays. The third issue is management. There is a management deficit on site which would speak to the finishing, scheduling and acceleration.

Again, I thank the Deputy for his support.