Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:

“notes:

— the cost escalation in the construction of the National Children’s Hospital, from €650 million in 2016 to €1.433 billion in November 2018;

— the additional €300 million in commissioning, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and other costs, bringing the total costs to €1.733 billion;

— the fact that this will make the National Children’s Hospital several times more expensive per bed than the most expensive hospitals in the world;

— the complete failure of Government oversight which has allowed an overrun of this scale;

— the complete failure of the Government to accept any material responsibility for the overrun; and

— the pressure this overrun will put on numerous health projects across Ireland for several years, potentially including services provided at the National Children’s Hospital;

further notes:

— the dedication of clinicians at the current children’s hospitals in Dublin to provide the best possible standard of care;

— the intense pressure on sick children, their families and clinicians due to the out-of-date facilities at these hospitals;

— the urgent need for a new National Children’s Hospital;

— the reported clinical advantages of tri-location with adult teaching and maternity hospitals;

— the several hundred million euro in public monies already expended and associated with winding down the current site and contractual obligations;

— the sixteen years from when the Government made a decision to build a National Children’s Hospital to the projected opening date of that hospital, in 2022; and

— the material risks associated with moving the location of the National Children’s Hospital, at this stage, including the potential for a higher final cost, and many years of further delay;

acknowledges:

— the lack of consensus amongst clinicians and other stakeholders with regard to the choice of the current site for the National Children’s Hospital; and

— the genuine anger and concern felt by many parents of sick children regarding potential difficulties of access, and other issues, associated with the current site; and

calls on the Government to:

— ensure the on-going PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report includes an extensive value-engineering analysis to identify options for reducing the cost overrun;

— urgently produce a costed and timetabled plan for the delivery of the new Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, relocated with the National Children’s Hospital;

— redesign the process for public strategic capital projects, to enable more rapid timeframes from ideation to completion;

— include in the PwC report, in light of the massive cost overruns at the current site, an analysis of the total costs and delays associated with moving the site; and

— act on the chronic clinical recruitment and retention issues being experienced, to ensure successful workforce planning.”

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