Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. As members are aware, the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board is responsible for the planning, design, construction and fit-out of the new children's hospital at the St. James's Campus, together with the construction of two associate paediatric outpatient and urgent care centres, located at Tallaght and Connolly hospitals. A number of parallel projects, outside the remit of the board, will be required to transfer staff and services into the new facilities and to get them into operation. These are being progressed by Children's Health Ireland which will operate the services in the new facilities in the future. The overall budget approved by Government in December 2018 to get the hospital and both satellite centres up and running was €1.7 billion. The budget available to the board for the physical development and equipping of the hospital and the satellite centres amounts to €1.4 billion. The budget for the parallel Children's Health Ireland projects is €300 million. The board is funded by Oireachtas grants provided via the Health Service Executive. In 2020, the grant funding provided amounted to €161.2 million, matched to an equivalent expenditure.

Up to the end of 2020, the board had spent a total of €621 million on design, construction and administration costs. The costs associated with the development and equipping of the Blanchardstown unit, which became operational in 2019, amounted to just under €37 million. The Blanchardstown assets were transferred to the Health Service Executive and to Children's Health Ireland. The remaining cumulative expenditure - a net €584 million - is recognised as the value of the fixed assets in development in the board's statement of financial position.

The final outturn on the project will depend on a number of factors. As members are aware, one of the main issues is the finalisation of contractor claims for additional payment over the original contract value. Note 11 to the financial statements discloses that the board has been notified of many such claims by the main contractor, and additional information in that regard has been supplied in correspondence. Note 11 also outlines the structures in place for the resolution of claims, including determination by the employer's representative or a project board, through conciliation, or ultimately if required, in the courts. As such claims are settled between the board and the main contractor, their impact is reflected in payments and-or in the capital commitments outstanding at the year end, recorded in Note 8. This note indicates that, excluding lease commitments on the board's office accommodation, the value of the capital commitments outstanding at the end of 2020 stood at €764 million, and that was down €110 million on the level outstanding at the end of 2019.