Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The children of Ireland need a national children’s hospital. It is an essential piece of infrastructure. Families’ hopes are on this hospital opening its doors and providing the state-of-the-art healthcare their children need. We all want to see this hospital opened without further delay. The project has been mismanaged from the start. It is already cited as the most expensive hospital in the world. Its opening has been pushed back time and time again.

Today, The Irish Timesreports on information obtained by my colleague, Deputy Cullinane. We have discovered that there is a major problem with no fewer than 11 operating theatres at the hospital. These problems were known to the board in May 2022, 13 months ago. The board has admitted these facts today. Remarkably, it took the board more than a full year to respond to this situation despite further warnings in November of last year.

I will quote from the report of an independent expert appointed by Children’s Health Ireland that the board received in November of last year on these matters. I ask the Taoiseach to listen carefully because the report sets out the seriousness of what it calls "major generic faults", saying:

These are not snagging lists but rather indicative of major generic faults and non-compliances. The longer that these issues take to get resolved, the more expensive and time consuming it will become.

It goes on to say, “If the present approach [...] is not corrected, the systems will fail the final validation and will not be fit to be taken into use.” Indeed, these independent experts expressed huge disappointment that no action had been taken since these major generic faults had been brought to the attention of the board months earlier. As a result of the failure to act, I can only assume that these theatres failed the quality checks in March of this year. I would like the Taoiseach to clarify that matter today.

Despite all the warnings, a process to work out how to fix these major generic faults is only now being put in place, more than a full year after they came to light. The Minister has today acknowledged that the hospital will not now open in March 2024 as promised. Children and families wait and wait while vast sums of taxpayers’ money is spent with carelessness by a Government that is asleep at the wheel. Tá ospidéal náisiúnta na leanaí riachtanach do teaghlaigh ar fud na tíre. Theip ar an Rialtas ceannaireacht agus maoirseacht a thaispeáint. Ba é an t-ospidéal is costasaí ar domhan cheana féin. Anois, de bharr lochtanna móra, feicfimid costais ag ardú arís agus tá moill ar oscailt an ospidéil.

This is not the first time that we have had such problems with this hospital. Massive cost overruns, massive delays and a lack of transparency have become synonymous with this project, as has massive disappointment for children and their families. The Taoiseach has said in the past that lessons would be learned but it is clear that this is not the case.

Lessons have not been learned. Indeed, this morning, I heard the Taoiseach quoted as saying that he is satisfied with the board’s response to the matters that I have set out. I have to say that the independent experts do not share the Taoiseach's view. The board knew all about these serious problems as far back as May 2022, 13 months ago. When did the Taoiseach find out?

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