Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

Fairy tales are what come to mind when one hears the Government’s excuses and explanations for the huge overrun at the national children’s hospital. One could not make it up. The last time I spoke here on this, I said that anyone with a whit of common sense would not believe what the Government is saying. That is even more true today than it was then.

At that stage, we were laughably told that the Minister for Health had not told the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform about the overrun as he had not completed his own investigation. Now we are told that the chief procurement officer, who is a member of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe’s Department, was not acting in that role on the hospital board, if we can believe it, but he had been appointed by the Minister for Health in a personal capacity, and that is why he was not required to report to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. These are fairy tales, more fairy tales and excuses.

Furthermore, when the Committee of Public Accounts called the procurement officer to appear before it, he did not. Why was this? The Secretary General said that he did not pick him on his team. The Secretary General thought that another individual from that section would be more appropriate than the procurement officer. Anyone who believes that will believe anything.

The PwC report is another fairy tale. Deputy Jonathan O’Brien told us that the report which was supposed to cost €450,000 will now cost €600,000. The biggest fairy tale of all is the actual cost of the national children’s hospital. It started at what was a reasonable enough figure of €650 million. Everyone in this House knows that if this hospital continues, the cost will be in excess of €2 billion. It is much more likely to be €2.5 billion. That is an absolute scandal.

We know now that there was a cover up by the Government. It was ensuring that it was not officially informed of the position because it was preparing for a general election. The Government was afraid that Fianna Fáil would pull out of the confidence and supply agreement and so it wanted a good budget.

We now find ourselves in a position where a considerable number of capital projects around the country will be suspended, delayed or deferred as a result of this huge overrun. Some of those affected in my own constituency include the unit at University Hospital Limerick which covers the north of County Tipperary and the 40 bed modular unit at South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel which, even though it will be completed and constructed later this year, is unlikely to open fully.

As I refer to that, I ask that we finally get confirmation of what funding is being made available to South Tipperary General Hospital to open that unit. A number of us have raised it here as a Topical Issue matter and we have not got figures. We raised it in parliamentary questions and we have not got figures. I have written to the Minister and I have not got figures. It is time that we got the figures. How much is provided for equipping and staff the 40-bed modular unit at South Tipperary General Hospital? There is the question of a 100-bed unit for the elderly at Cashel. Will that be delayed?

Of course, there is the shocking situation of mental health services in Tipperary where the 50-bed inpatient psychiatric unit at St. Michael's unit in Clonmel closed in 2012. We now have a situation where there is no inpatient service in the county and the unit in Kilkenny where south Tipperary patients must go has been the subject of a court case by HIQA recently. It is shocking. That unit in Clonmel needs to be opened and we can have no deferral, suspension or delay of those projects.

There is no question in my mind but that the site at St. James's was never the right site. I believe the motion is reasonable and that within a reasonable time span, proper investigation should take place, a new greenfield site, which would allow costs savings, should be investigated and the national children's hospital built there.

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