Dáil debates

Tuesday, 18 December 2018

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

2:05 pm

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The satellite centre at Connolly Hospital is almost finished. I visited it yesterday. It will be open to patients next summer. Tallaght is very well advanced. The enabling works, the site works and the phase A works are now close to completion at the St. James's site.

It has a dedicated board, a paediatric hospital development board, which was set up with the express purpose of making sure that this project was driven by expertise, people who knew how to do big projects. The board is made up of people who have experience in this area and has a CEO who is experienced in this area.

This morning, Cabinet met and discussed the issue of the escalating costs. We agreed to accept the new overall cost, which is €1.433 billion. That represents a €450 million increase on what we had projected in April 2017. Of that, €319 million is made up of increased constructions, €50 million is VAT and the remainder relates to staff planning, design teams, risk contingency and the management equipment service to make sure that the hospital is properly equipped.

There will be further investigations as to how these costs escalated by so much since April last year, and the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board will be available to brief members of the Committee of Public Accounts and of the Oireachtas joint committee to give them any information that they want about this project and about the reasons behind the escalating costs.

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