Results 19,761-19,780 of 74,100 for speaker:Bernard Durkan
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: That is one of them.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: A year later.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: To return to my original point, I cannot understand how it is possible to have so many constituent bodies allegedly operating in the same direction. From the very beginning, the issue has related to the original cost. I know preliminary costings were done. How preliminary were they in this instance? The presumption would be that, based on preliminaries, there could have been 10%, 5%, 4%...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: When did it do so?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: I presume the €921 million included VAT.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: That was an increase of how much on the previous guesstimates.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: Was that on a monthly basis?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: So it was done on a yearly basis.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: In 2017, there was an estimated cost of €920 million based on more solid information that was available.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: In round figures, it was almost €1 billion in 2017. The questions that were raised at that time were regarding the overruns in various areas, to which I will return. To what extent did the various groups refer to other hospital projects that had taken place in the past ten, 15 or 20 years by way of comparison in order to be alert to possible snags that might occur? Was there any...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: From what did it arise?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: Can I have specifics?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: We will get that.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: We have digested last week's information in the meantime and perhaps it looks different now but I have a concern about health services being dependent on projections that obviously do not stand up. For example, I have tabled numerous parliamentary questions on this subject since before the Mater project. At one point I was informed that some economies would emerge as a result of the work...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: I have not finished. I have one further question.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: I would first like to get an answer to the question I have asked.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: I was told at the time it would be more than €50 million. These figures have a habit of changing. It has been a feature.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: I am finalising it now, but I have been sitting here for a long time waiting for this moment to come. My patience was just about at its tether, and when one's patience goes to one's tether it is a dangerous thing. My colleagues have raised the issue of projects in their constituencies, and there is also one in my constituency, namely, the endoscopy unit and an oncology extension at Naas...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: It needs to be active because planning permission has been granted for that project. Where planning permission is granted, a substantial extra cost is involved if we have to go back over the entire thing again and start from scratch. It would be like the children's hospital.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Children's Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)
Bernard Durkan: As time goes by, I get more and more confused about the general project. We were led to believe the increase in costs would be from €660 million to €1.7 billion, which would have been alarming. It now appears the project had been projected to cost just short of €1 billion. That was a reasonable and fairly accurate estimate when the various boards put their heads...