Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 22 May 2025
Public Accounts Committee
National Paediatric Hospital Development Board and Children's Health Ireland: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. David Gunning:
We have a 12-member board. There is one vacancy at the moment. It is a very recent vacancy. The board is made up of two construction lawyers and a senior counsel, all with very strong experience and the senior counsel being a former Government Minister. We have a former Secretary General of the Department of Finance. We have a number of engineers from large construction companies with great experience in large projects, including healthcare projects, who are household names in Ireland in terms of where they worked during their working life. We also have three former NHS commissioners of services - two from Northern Ireland and one from Scotland.
They have built hospitals, brought them into use and that skill set is on our board, with a wonderful chair. We have a very strong high-performing board. We discuss these matters at great length as members can imagine because there is an awful lot to take away from it. The board, however, is focused on one thing: get this hospital open as soon as possible. That is our focus. That is not to say that we do not look at how we can learn. Mr. Tierney mentioned various processes earlier. We have been part of an ongoing dialogue with the Department of Health, OGP and various other entities on what are the possible takeaways from this whole area and how that might be brought into use in future projects.
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