Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I visited the site today with my colleagues and, as I said last week, there is a black hole in the ground. Nothing of any height is coming out of the 15 m depth yet, so spending €80 million on it so far is a lot of money.

In December 2018, the Minister welcomed the announcement by the European Investment Bank, EIB, of its decision to provide a loan of €490 million to Ireland to support the construction of the new national children's hospital and associated outpatient centre. He stated:

This is the EIB's largest ever single capital loan in Ireland and the loan represents almost half of the €1 billion Exchequer investment required to develop the core hospital and the two outpatient and urgent care centres. Securing this long-term financing from the EIB will reduce the overall interest cost to the State of financing the new children's hospital and centres.

Clearly, nothing of this kind has happened in terms of reducing costs. What was the interest rate for the loan and what is the cost of the repayments to date? Is he considering going back to the EIB to request another loan? What happened to the €200 million he got from the sale of the national lottery? Where is that gone? This hole is getting bigger and deeper.

PwC has no construction experience. Will the Minister not bring in a construction expert from Switzerland or somewhere outside the country who is not connected to BAM or anyone else?

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