Mr. David Gunning:

I thank the Deputy for that question. First, I will be delighted and look forward to welcoming members of the committee to the site so they can see for themselves the progress being made. I guess what we have is a compliant programme. That means that the employers' representative has stated that it is theoretically possible to deliver the remainder of the works by December 2023. We will then have a period where Children's Health Ireland and the development board will work together on commissioning systems and opening the hospital. We are trying to optimise as much concurrent engineering between the activities of the development board and Children's Health Ireland to accelerate and bring about the successful opening of the hospital as early as possible. It is, however, unlikely that the opening will happen any earlier than the second half of 2024. I ask my colleague, Mr. Devine, to comment on this question as well. He has been working with the contractor on the programme and the detailed review of it.