Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask about political accountability for what is happening with the children's hospital or, rather, what is not happening. I read the coverage of the letter sent by the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, to the Taoiseach about the latest delays relating to the building of the new hospital. Perhaps that correspondence could more accurately be described as a letter from the Minister to the RTÉ newsroom, copied to the Taoiseach. Clearly, there are questions to be asked and answered about the purpose of that letter and why a letter was needed between two Cabinet colleagues who presumably speak to each other frequently. Regardless, we are led to understand from the text of the letter that the Minister is very angry at the continued delays to this vital infrastructure.

The Minister is not alone. We are all angry. We all want to see the children's hospital built. However, it is not for the Minister for Health or, indeed, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to be angry about or to take offence at these issues like bystanders. It is simply not good enough for the Minister opposite to comment, as he has just done, that the delay is unacceptable, as if the Government has no role, oversight or accountability. The job of the Government and the Minister for Health is to take charge of this and ensure that the hospital is built, rather than engaging in what seems to be a sort of unedifying psychodrama played out in letters to the press.

With an endless litany of delays and cost overruns, people are losing faith in the Government's capacity to deliver major public projects. We will not be able to see the sun soon for all the kites being flown above Government Buildings in advance of the budget. None of those kites ever seems to result in delivery, either of the children's hospital or other much-needed projects, including the homes that need to be built and the upgrades to public transport that are so badly required. I am thinking of the Taoiseach's recent kite-flying about a new Department for infrastructure. Respectfully, it seems to many of us that the Minister's Department, namely the Department of public expenditure and reform, should be delivering infrastructure. That is what his Department is for. Indeed, it has questions to answer about the cost overruns and delays in the children's hospital. I recall previous concerns raised about why the chief procurement officer, who sat on the board of the hospital, did not inform the Minister about cost overruns some years ago when this first stated to become an issue.

Beyond the cost overruns, there are other serious issues. A leaked report today from KPMG questions the capacity of Children's Health Ireland to run the hospital whenever it is finally built, which is partly attributed to the extraordinary delays in construction. It appears that there is blame lying with the developer, BAM. Again, we in the Opposition have to ask what the Government will do about those delays. What is the Minister for Health going to do? What did his predecessor, the Taoiseach, do? What did the Taoiseach's predecessor, Deputy Varadkar, do?

What does Deputy Donohoe propose to do, as public expenditure Minister? Will he protect public procurement from third parties that lowball cost estimates at tender stage and then continually revise figures upwards? Can he say now when the children's hospital will be delivered and how much it will cost?

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