Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Health has made it very clear that he is committed to the second cath lab in Waterford. It is part of the service plan for 2019. The Taoiseach has said very clearly that the funding challenges in relation to the national children's hospital will not result in the cancellation of any commitments that have been made. In the nature of capital expenditure, as others in this House who have been involved in significant capital expenditure management linked to Government are aware, there may well be delays and space to ensure that the extra €100 million or so - half of which is in the Department of Health - that is linked to the increased cost of the national children's hospital this year, can be found by delays that may happen in relation to other big capital expenditure projects. We are spending billions of euro this year on capital expenditure. Capital expenditure is up by 25% on last year. I reassure people that we are not going to cancel other projects that have capital commitment, but the scheduling of payments for some of those projects that may be affected by means of enforced delays through planning or permitting systems or other delays will be looked at in order to create the space and the funding to facilitate the increased cost of the national children's hospital.

In relation to the PwC review, the Government is committed to doing an independent and thorough investigation into the process and how the estimated expenditure of delivering the hospital increased as it did, so that we can learn lessons from that to make sure that when we spend a committed €116 billion of capital expenditure over the next ten years we ensure that projects are kept within budget and that we do it in a way that is transparent and open. When PwC finalises its report it will be published so that we learn lessons from it. Many public projects are coming in on time and within budget. The national children's hospital is a project that we need to learn lessons from and that is the whole point of getting an independent piece of professional work done, which I accept costs money, but in the context of the overall cost of this project and the potential savings from lessons learnt, we hope that it will be money well spent.

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