Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I confirm that the recommendations of the PwC report will be implemented. The shortfalls that were found will be addressed. With regard to who is responsible, the sponsoring authority that wanted to propose this project is the Department of Health. The body that sanctioned it, the approving authority, was the Government. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform provides the public spending code and advice and help to anybody who is undertaking large projects. The PwC report indicated that it was not enough to rely on the sponsoring authority, which is the contracting authority, to monitor its own projects and that we needed an external, independent review so that someone could review it and say that it is not enough.

That is the change that we need. We have a huge number of projects worth €1 million and more planned as part of the national development plan. We need a robust control mechanism to make sure those projects do not run over in the way the children's hospital has done, and that we learn from that.

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