Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The new children’s hospital will be an incredible state of the art hospital, one of the best in the world, and nobody will be sorry that it was built. When people see it and parents experience the treatments their children receive there, nobody will say it was not worth it. I guarantee the Deputy that. It will be Ireland’s first digital public hospital, with 380 individual en suite rooms with rooms for parents to stay overnight in each room, 60 critical care beds and 90 three-day beds.

There is a good deal of focus on the cost, which has been affected by Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and inflation. As Deputies know, delay is the biggest contributor to the cost and the project will take longer than planned and cost more than projected. Infrastructure projects like this are huge, complex and difficult. We see this in projects of this scale internationally but I reassure the House everything is being done to ensure the project is completed as soon as possible.

As things stand, the new hospital is 85% complete and the focus of works continues to be on internal fit-out and commissioning of mechanical and electrical services. Medical equipment is now also being installed. The elevated helipad, which will serve the children's hospital and St. James’s, is progressing to its final stages of assembly. Substantial completion is informed by the contractor’s programme and the last construction programme received from BAM, the contractor, suggested substantial competition could be achieved by March 2024. BAM has since revised this to May 2024. Once substantial competition is achieved, the hospital has to be handed over and there will be a period of months before it is fully commissioned.

To answer the Deputy’s question, we expect it to be completed and handed over next year and open to patients towards the end of next year, or early 2025 at the latest.

The budget for the hospital is €1.433 billion, of which €1.32 billion has been drawn down to date. That was the budget we agreed in 2018. It is clear, however, that the budget will have to be increased and that €1.433 billion will not be adequate. It is important to bear in mind that when people use the figure of €2 billion, which I hear a lot, it does not take account of a number of things, such as that the total cost is very much related to time, given the inflation clause. People also think that €2 billion figure applies only to the main campus at St. James’s but it does not. It also includes the urgent care centre in Blanchardstown, which is already open, running and operating well, as well as the urgent care centre in Tallaght, which is open and operating well. It includes the decommissioning of Crumlin and Temple Street.

It even includes the money that was spent on the failed attempt to build on the Mater site about 20 years ago. When people use the €2 billion figure, it is used in a misleading way.

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