Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was scathing earlier this year when it emerged that the cost of the building of the children's hospital had escalated from €987 million in 2017 to €1.4 billion. I called for building to stop and for an investigation into the overrun. We know now that the total bill is expected to be more than €1.7 billion when other costs are included for the total cost has yet to be finalised. The cost will then go to arbitration to be haggled over, as happens in all building projects. Any differences will go to arbitration to haggled over and we will probably never know the actual final cost of the hospital.

Paul Quinn was the State's chief procurement officer, in which role he was tasked with securing value for money and reforms in the use of private contractors by public bodies. He sat on the board of the children's hospital and was chair of its finance sub-committee. The board met on 7 August and noted Mr. Quinn's resignation from the hospital board. Mr. Quinn is the latest senior figure to step down from the board. Previous resignations to hit the hospital project include that of the chairman of the board, Mr. Tom Costello, and of project director, Mr. John Pollock. The officials in charge of the project came under sustained political criticism over the failure to flag the serious cost increases. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Quinn was obliged as a senior civil servant to pass on to the relevant Minister any concerns he might have had about the rising cost of the project if he felt the hospital board was not addressing them. The question is whether Mr. Quinn passed on any reports to the Minister or his Department on cost overruns or questions regarding the running of the hospital project. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, told the Committee of Public Accounts that Mr. Quinn was bound by a circular which states that information should be presented to a Minister where there are serious weaknesses in controls or a risk of reputational damage to the body concerned.

In the context of the cost of the project, it was interesting that the Taoiseach and the Minister chose not to launch the HSE's €2.1 billion three-year capital plan at the site of the new national children's hospital. The cost of building the children's hospital at St. James's has jumped from €900 million to €1.7 billion and continues to hang as a millstone around the Government's neck. It took the Minister nine months into the capital plan period to agree a capital plan that we are told is proofed against cost overruns at the children's hospital site. The Taoiseach proclaimed proudly at the launch of the capital plan that none of the hundreds of other capital projects, large or small, will be cancelled because of the problems of the children's hospital. He said that if delays occur, it will not be because of the children's hospital and that anyone who said otherwise by claiming projects would be cut was scandalmongering and telling fake and made-up stories. That is strange because it was the HSE which earlier warned that it would be impossible to deliver investments in healthcare because of the budget overrun in the children's hospital project. The Minister told colleagues last December that spending on a number of major projects could be halted or significantly curtailed for four to five years on foot of the same issue.

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