Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste is calling this a special project but it is not actually a very special project. It is a construction project; it is not unique. Hospitals get built every year across Europe. It does not justify an extra €450 million. The report states that the board should be less reliant on external advisers. If the Government is going to hire consultants and pay them, maybe it might hold them to account. I am sure the consultants have professional indemnity. I would be very surprised if the Government hired consultants who did not have that. If the legal people gave poor advice, they should be held to account. What was the legal advice regarding the contract? How did the board deal with the legal advice? The likes of Tim Bouchier-Hayes and Tom Costello were put on the board for their professional competence. Were they competent? The Taoiseach talks of the cost of delays, higher building standards, and the knock-on effect of VAT. Delays and changes are meant to managed. That is what people are paid for. There is always risk involved but the risk should be transferred onto the contractor. The contractor builds that into his price. Why did the price go up? Construction costs have gone up but not by €450 million.

The scary part is that we are only at the start of it. We have not got to the complicated part yet. It has gone up, it is out of proportion and the Government does not know where it is going, where it is going to land or what it is going to finally cost. The Government has the wrong contract in place and is refusing to revisit it. It is a terrible mistake not to revisit this. On page 25 of the report, PwC says that the Government should not revisit the contract. However, the report gives no evidence to back that up. There is no analysis of why it would not make sense to revisit it. PwC tells us that retendering the works would also require the replacement contractor to take on the basement and subsequent structural works and that it would create a number of contractual and legal challenges. It would not. That is nonsense. If I was building a 100-storey building, I would subcontract the piler. The piles would go in. I would not be putting them in; someone else would be putting them in. I would get them tested independently. That is what one does with piles. The contractors would have professional indemnity to back up where they were coming from. This does not make any sense. The Government needs to revisit it, as it is ridiculous.

See this speech in context