David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The exorbitant cost of the national children's hospital is going to have a serious impact on the delivery and progression of other projects over the next number of years, and that much has been confirmed by the Minister for Health and the Department. Despite the massive implications, nobody involved in the process appears to want to take any responsibility. It seems the Government has set its face against any statutory review by either the Comptroller and Auditor General, as was hinted at by one of the Tánaiste's ministerial colleagues recently, or any other State organ. The Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, whose job it is to supervise procurement and public expenditure, is still refusing to appear before the Joint Committee on Health to account for his Department's role in the process. The Minister for Health, for his part, and the Department are hiding behind the review of the process being conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers at a cost of €450,000 in taxpayer's money, to add insult to injury.

At at meeting of the Joint Committee on Health on 16 January, Mr. Tom Costello, chair of the board of the national children's hospital, said: "If we were to start again on a project of this scale and complexity we would adopt [exactly] the same procurement approach." That seems to be a head-in-the-sand approach.

No lessons have been learnt. Nothing is going to change and the taxpayer simply has to get on with it. What we need to know is what projects will be affected. At the Committee of Public Accounts this morning I put it to the Secretary General of the Department of Health, Mr. Jim Breslin, whether a number of projects, including the second cath lab for Waterford, are under consideration. That funding was promised to Waterford Oireachtas Members and regional Oireachtas Members. There is a raft of capital projects which we now understand is under consideration. We were told that money was guaranteed and yet today at the Committee of Public Accounts the Secretary General of the Department of Health said it had not been signed off on and it is under review. It is one of a number of capital projects that is under review by the Department. Other projects affected are the new MRI scanner at Midland Regional Hospital, Mullingar; the upgrade to wards in Cavan hospital; the national radiation oncology programme in the Tánaiste's county of Cork; and the second cath lab in Waterford. We need straight answers. Only a few minutes ago the Minister of State, Deputy John Halligan, said in my ear that the Minister had said the project was safe. Which is it? We had the Secretary General at the Committee of Public Accounts telling us it was under consideration and a local Minister of State saying the funding is secure. There will be victims and casualties as a result of the massive overrun. Services will be cut, capital projects may not go ahead and the Tánaiste must spell out very clearly to people across the State, either in Mullingar, Cork, Waterford or wherever else, which capital projects are under consideration and not signed off on and which are not.

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