Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 June 2022

Public Accounts Committee

National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2020

9:30 am

Mr. Phelim Devine:

Yes, I think it was very reasonable because the contractor cannot predict four and a half years in the future. Mr. Gunning has talked about the scenarios that might have been in the accounts that we predicted and we have all seen where inflation has gone this year for all the various reasons like Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine. Nobody could have predicted we would have an average of 10.3% inflation for this year so it would have been an unfair burden on the contractor to take that risk in a job that is going to last four and a half year and that is-----