Results 15,281-15,300 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Pausing the contract would not be considered.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Was that decision made because we are already so far into the project?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: I understand that.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: I ask Mr. Breslin to provide his thoughts on that issue in note form.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: It would be very useful. Mr. Farragher has the financial obligation in respect of this project. I presume he has a strong background in this area. Has he worked on projects of this nature before? Have they come in on time and on budget? What expertise does he bring to this that will enable him to he tell us why this has happened?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Mr. Farragher is just accounting for the money that is spent, rather than managing any aspect of the cost of the project tender.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: How many companies of quantity surveyors or experts have been involved in this? I presume they would have worked on each detailed area.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Do those companies come with professional indemnities?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: If these companies get things wrong what are the consequences for them?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Some capital projects do very well and come in on time and on budget. Motorways, for example, routinely come in on time and on budget. That happens because they get it right at the beginning in terms of design, the management of the project and the addition of penalties. There has been a huge amount of learning. We know that lead authorities, for example, should be those that have...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Put me down for another round.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Mr. Breslin used the word slippage. Talk about an understatement. This is very expensive learning-on-the-job exercise. We need to know where the institutional gaps exist. We must establish what institutional mechanisms we need to put in place for capital projects, even unique projects such as this, so that it is not a case of someone coming in and learning on the next project such as the...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: I will set out the context. Everyone wants the national children's hospital. There have been disputes, but none has been about whether there is a need for it. There was a complete understanding and acceptance that we would pay for it collectively through taxation, but people hate being taken for fools, and that is exactly how they feel. They expected the hospital to be delivered within a...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: We heard earlier that, in fact, the estimation process was far from robust right from the word go.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: The failure was much further back.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Nobody expects the Department of Health to have an expert section to deal with a project or a small number of projects that are to last for, say, 100 years. In terms of learning, it strikes me that once this is over, that expertise will be lost and there will be no institutional memory in terms of other projects, not necessarily in the health area but capital projects where we have a big...
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: The point is that the expertise is being bought in from the private sector. We possibly need to have a beefing up of the public sector side in this regard. I will move on as time is tight. The witnesses talked about penalty clauses on the contracting side. Are there penalty clauses on the side of the contractor or contractors? If so, what are they and how many are there?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Can I have that in English, please?
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Therefore, there is no value, given construction inflation, in dragging it out because there is a penalty to put an end to it.
- Public Accounts Committee: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board: Financial Statements 2017 (31 Jan 2019)
Catherine Murphy: Are there penalties on the contractor side with regard to other aspects?