Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

With every passing day, the scandal surrounding the development of the national children’s hospital grows deeper. The only thing that is absolutely certain at this point is that all of it could have been avoided.

In 2016, Dr. Jimmy Sheehan, Ireland's leading hospital developer with six decades of experience in delivering world class health projects, in conjunction with Dr. Fin Breathnach, our premier paediatric oncologist, told the Oireachtas health committee that opting for the St. James's site would lead to catastrophic cost overruns. I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group presented this information in a Private Members' motion on 29 March 2017, a full month before the Government signed off on the first part of the contract. Unfortunately, the Taoiseach and his Government chose to listen to an inexperienced Minister who did not have six days' work experience in the Department of Health instead of listening to the experience of a professional hospital developer and a medical man of some renown with six decades of experience.

Every concern Dr. Sheehan, the parents and everybody else raised in 2016 has now come to pass. He has been ignored and sidelined, as was the Connolly for Kids campaign, but above all the parents of the most sick children, the Jack and Jill Foundation, Dr. Róisín Healy and many others repeatedly told the Government about inevitable access difficulties to the site. Not only was the Government told but every Member in this House who cared to listen was told. One would think that having accurately predicted both the cost overruns and the lack of capacity at the site, which we visited last week – it is nothing but a big black hole – that Dr. Sheehan and his colleagues would be welcomed with open arms and asked for their advice on how to proceed, especially now that the company, BAM, has offered to withdraw from the project and go back into negotiations, which I welcome, yet that has not happened. The Government seems determined not to learn from past mistakes. If the Taoiseach wants to talk about yarns, that is the yarn that will be told about him.

Two weeks ago, I wrote to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health asking it to invite Dr. Sheehan and his colleagues back in to engage with the committee on possible solutions. Now is the opportunity for that. The committee rejected the suggestion, which appalled me, and gave the extraordinary reason that it had already heard what they had to say in 2016, which has now proven to be true, and we are now in a hole.

Can the Taoiseach believe that the committee objected and refused, as if nothing had changed or happened in the meantime? This beggars belief. It is some yarn.

Two years ago, the Connolly for Kids group wrote to the Taoiseach personally, as it had to the previous Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, and handed in some 60,000 signatures expressing concern but they were not listened to. The group did not even get a reply from the Taoiseach himself and received a one-line reply from former Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny.

I have worked closely with Dr. Sheehan for a number of years on this issue. He is clear that €63 million in cost savings could be made with respect to the proposed underground car park for St. James's alone. This would also avoid what has been described as the bizarre and unnecessarily dangerous decision to build a children’s hospital above an underground car park where the risk of fire could substantially destabilise the structure, with potentially horrific consequences.

The suggested costs of making the national children's hospital at St. James's a digital hospital are €150 million.

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