Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On a night where we have seen complete chaos in Britain in respect of how an omnishambles can be created, by comparison, this is similarly an omnishambles, which has been going on for a period. The idea of building a children's hospital has been mooted for decades. The process can be traced back to 1993 when the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland made its recommendation; that was 26 years ago. No one could stand over what has happened regarding the hospital. It is a collective mess and a complete and utter mess as regards decision-making, Government handling and the processes and structures that were put in place. I have spoken on the issue in the House and in committees numerous times. The situation is bizarre. It will provide a case study for business students in years to come. The bottom line is that the cost will not stop at €2 billion. My colleague on the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Jonathan O’Brien, said this before me, as did the Chairman of the committee, and they are deadly accurate. The cost will be closer to well over €2 billion than it will be to €1.7 billion because there will be 4% inflation and more on top of that. There are so many holes in the process, such as how we ended up in a two-stage process in the first place. I was quoted earlier and I do not wish to repeat what has been said but I have always asked that question. It was virgin territory. The question is: why now and why this? Who made the decision? Who calculated that it was the right decision to make? After all this time, we still do not know.

When we consider the events over the past year or so, it gets even more bizarre. I wish to focus on that because it goes to the essence of a Government that is in control and knows what it is doing. There are cost overruns but they have been outsourced to the board. That board has another layer on top of it because there were concerns about overruns. That board then has another layer on top of it again because there were concerns about overruns. Now there are three boards for the one project, yet this was the right thing to do and it was right to have a two-stage process. Those involved were so confident about it that nine months ago that three boards were put in place to report to one another, yet still during all of this process when overruns started to materialise at a substantial rate last summer, the Minister for Health only found out at the end of the summer and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, unbelievably, despite one of his most senior officials sitting on the board, did not find out until 9 November. I have said previously in the House that that is not credible. That is substantiated by the evidence given to the Committee of Public Accounts last week by the Secretary General of the Department. That is not credible. As a former Minister, I know there are officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform who would fight someone for a fiver. That is their job. Is it credible that the project escalated from €61 million to €271 million to €400 million, to God knows where it is going, and that nobody said anything? Is it possible that during the budget process, the Estimates process and the confidence and supply agreement negotiations, not one individual in the entire Department ever said there was a problem?

According to the Constitution and how we must behave in this House regarding Estimates, the process must be truthful. There were major cost overruns, which was known since the middle of last summer. Letters were sent by the constructor to the Department which ended up with the Minister at the end of August. The budgetary process had begun and it was concluded in October. The Estimates process comes after that. They were revised in December. None of that was taken into account and yet we had the embarrassing situation where the Government had to come in recently to revise the Estimates. However, we were told not to lose sleep over it because, as we found out last week, it will only cost €100 million in 2019. I am sorry, but it will be a lot more than €100 million. We do not know what the figure is, but hundreds of millions of euro that will have to be found.

I wish to ask a few questions in the short time available. Why was the PwC report not commissioned by the Government? How many people know that is the case? The report was commissioned by the HSE. Why is there such a distinction? This is not a Government report. How many times have we inside in this theatre asked questions of the Minister for Health to be told that it is a matter for the HSE and he has no function whatsoever in regard to it? Where does that leave us as regards the report, which bizarrely should probably look similar to what Mazars said in the first place, with a few add-ons? Specifically, I would like to know where it leaves us, given the fact that the HSE has commissioned the report rather than the Department. Is this a buffer zone? Why was it necessary? The Minister should explain the need for the HSE to commission the report as opposed to the Department. It has been repeatedly said that we do not know who signed off on the two-stage process. I do not know what will be the difference between the report done by Mazars and that done by PwC. The Minister had it all in front of him. He was able to hire PR firms to spin matters. He knew it would be a big mess all along. The issues relate to how we got here and I have touched on a flavour of them.

I was a member of the Government that signed off on building the children's hospital. It was the right decision. I would not have been part of a Government that made such a decision if I knew it would end up with the current scale of costs. As everyone knows, money was very tight, and there is no way we would have been in a position to make a decision based on the current costs. That is why this is a case study, and it must be analysed as to how in the name of God we got to the bad situation that we are in. Throwing good money after bad is not something I can support. However, the process that has been gone through with PwC justifies and shows comparatively that we must continue on this route while learning about cost savings we can make, as opposed to moving to any other site.

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