Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government has been less than transparent and generally is at sea in explaining and accounting for the extraordinary escalation in the cost of the national children's hospital.

In 2016, the Taoiseach, in his then role as Minister for Health, announced that the hospital would cost €650 million all-in, including inflation, VAT and contingency, and that, short of an asteroid hitting, it would be built in 2020. A year later, that figure of €650 million became €980 million. In 2018, it became €1.7 billion. Before Christmas, the Taoiseach told the Dáil it was €1.4 billion, yet we now know that the figure was actually €1.7 billion.

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