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

I have been following this debate very closely in the past couple of weeks and it seems that virtually nobody is opposed to building a new national children's hospital. While it has been promised for decades by successive Governments, it is now being delivered. It is under construction, with the first phase due to open in Blanchardstown next year and the final project due to be completed by 2022 or 2023. Nobody is disputing the Government's decision, made in December, to proceed with the project. We were faced with three possibilities, namely, to cancel the project all together and set aside over €250 million invested to date, to retender, which would have delayed matters and probably ended up costing even more, or to proceed.

We decided to proceed and very few people opposite have argued that we made the wrong decision to proceed at that time. As I said, this is not an issue of taxpayers' money being wasted, but it is an issue of the Government and its agents underestimating the true cost of this project. We accept responsibility for that and we are accountable for it. As I said earlier, the last three big projects brought in by this Government, Luas cross city, the M11 and the M17 and M18 projects, costing between €250 million and €500 million, came in broadly on time and on budget. In the same way as we accept the credit for that, we, of course, accept the responsibility when things go wrong. We do accept responsibility. We also accept that lessons have to be learned. Perhaps in my next intervention I can talk about some of the decisions that Cabinet made today in that regard.

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