Results 11,641-11,660 of 26,396 for speaker:David Cullinane
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Should there have been more robust challenges from both Departments in terms of speaking to each other and speaking to the board because Mr. Breslin said all the eggs were in that basket? Was there sufficient robust challenge regarding how this project was being managed and how this project was looking at cost containment or worse, cost escalation? Is Mr. Breslin satisfied that he now...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: I get that and that is a fair point. The Comptroller and Auditor General has a lot of experience in looking at process. Very often, many of the issues we cover involve a failure of governance or insufficient robust exchanges or information to hand for people who need information when they are making decisions. This is not just a project; it is about construction and the building of a...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Okay.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Okay. I concur with that. I would like to look at the structure that was set up. We had the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. Then we had two separate steering groups, one of which was the children's hospital project and programme steering group. According to the PwC report, "the terms of reference and composition of the CHP&P Steering Group and Board meant that their...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Yes. The development board itself was looked at as a "single point of failure". What lessons have been learned from that?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: The report raises questions about the level of challenge.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: It uses the word "challenge" an awful lot.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: I will come back to the board now. I will start with Mr. Barry, who is new to the board. The report seems to suggest that there was a lack of challenge, and of robust discussion and debate on serious issues, at board level. I will bring Mr. Quinn in on this matter in a moment. Does Mr. Barry agree that the PwC report points to an apparent lack of ability to challenge across all the...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Has the board examined the extent to which challenge was provided? Two reports have examined where the process failures were. According to the Mazars report:It was noted in the GMP report dated 12 November 2018 that a key driver in the escalation of costs was the 2nd stage measurement process. The cost escalation noted in respect of this process was €142m. Anyone who examines where...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Was Mr. Quinn on the board at that time?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: I will stop Mr. Quinn there. Is that, in itself, not a problem?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: How was it that the board did not know? Where was the failure? Why did the board not become aware of this until the tail end of May 2018? What was the failure that led to circumstances in which the board did not find out until the tail end of May 2018? If things were working effectively, surely the board would have been aware much earlier. If it was not the board's fault, it was someone...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: The board was being told it was a single point of failure. We are now being told by Mr. Quinn that they did not become aware of the escalating costs until the tail end. There was an obvious failure in process. How could it be that at the tail end, the board-----
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: One second. Sorry, I am not finished. The board, which was tasked with making sure of value for money and containing costs, did not become aware until the tail end. How did that happen?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: The design process-----
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: All of this has to go back to the overall project. According to page 18 of the Mazars report on the design, and as Mr. Quinn has outlined, "Design best estimate costs increased sharply in June and July 2018 as more packages were costed."
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: The additional costs came to approximately €15 million. It seems that this is a process failure.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Mr. Quinn sat on the board. Was he on the board from the beginning?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Mr. Quinn has seen it all. He saw what the board did or did not do. He saw all the failures about which we now know, as a result of the PwC and Mazars reports. We now have the benefit of hindsight. Mr. Quinn may not have had that at the time. Does he believe, in the context of his own membership of the board, that there may have been failings on his part, given that he was also head of...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (Resumed) (16 May 2019)
David Cullinane: Given that we have potentially lost €500 million, none of this is cheap.