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

As our most instinctively political Taoiseach for many years, the Taoiseach obviously puts significant store on his appointed advisers. He makes sure that he always has at hand a political attack for when he is under pressure. Equally, his political advisers are expected to be very active in looking for marketing opportunities. What is incredibly surprising is that in spite of the sheer number of times he talked about the children's hospital in the first half of last year - he talked quite a lot about it, including using public money on social media promotion of his good self - for some reason it basically disappeared from his speeches as the year went on. In his Ard-Fheis speech on 17 November he did not mention it or the health capital programme at all. At the start of last August, the Government reappointed the entire board of the National Children's Hospital. A few weeks later, information emerged about the significant scale of overspend and apparently this was accepted by the Government without any review and without calling for any heads to roll.

It was only when the overspend became public that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, began to say they were very concerned and that it was wrong. They then made calls for the PricewaterhouseCoopers review. One has to ask, given the extent of the political operation at the heart of government, whether the Taoiseach is surprised that the issue did not surface earlier. Would it have been identified if the Cabinet committees had met more regularly? Should the Cabinet committees on infrastructure and health have been receiving regular updates on the costings of such a major component of the national development plan as the national children's hospital? Was it buried because the Taoiseach was planning a general election? I listened to the answers he gave to Deputy Howlin. He said the Minister of Health had become aware of the overspends in August. I assume the Taoiseach is saying the Minister did the right thing by waiting until-----

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