Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

We are dealing with a runaway train in terms of the cost for a national children's hospital. In reality, construction inflation does not account for the rise in costs that the Minister of State indicated earlier this evening. She said that the cost rose by 9% per year since the project was first announced. To the best of my knowledge, when I was in government we signed off on a project that was valued at about €650 million. Of course every construction project factors in, to a degree, the anticipated construction inflation. I do not believe that construction inflation is the reason for the project to double in cost.

I understand from media interviews conducted by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform that him and the Minister for Health will have to sign-off the cost for this project. I appeal to the Minister of State and her colleagues to ensure that every last cent is extracted from this process in terms of savings for the taxpayer.

Where does this project leave other major capital projects that the State willl undertake in the future? For example, the new national forensic mental health hospital in Portrane, the proposed new national maternity hospital that is urgently required, hospital extensions across the country and the €400 million that was allocated by the previous Government for necessary upgrades, extensions and the development of new public nursing homes across that country that everybody is concerned about. Are these projects in jeopardy due to the projected cost overrun in terms of the original budget for the national children's hospital? If so, I call on the Minister for Health to urgently make a statement identifying which projects are in jeopardy, may not proceed and may be in difficulty. We have not taken into account the estimated €350 million that is likely to be owed to hospital consultants. Neither have we taken into account the cost of a pay settlement that may emerge from negotiations between the Department of Health, the HSE and the nursing unions. All of that is before the Public Service Pay Commission reports and the Government engages with the public sector trade unions on escalating the process of public sector pay restoration for those who work in the public health service. We have spent five years ensuring we got a handle on national budgets, learned lessons from the past and controlled expenditure as expertly done by the former Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, in recent years and under an awful lot of pressure. Now it seems that money is no object for this Government. It does not appear to be concerned about cost overruns the likes of which pertain, it appears, to the national children's hospital.

I ask the Minister of State to use her good offices to liaise with the Minister for Health, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and her other colleagues to make sure that this issue is examined by the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, as suggested by my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Joan Burton. I ask for this to happen because I do not want to see an investigation being carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts in a number of years time on cost overruns for such a vital project. We need to get a handle on this matter. We need to understand how this project affects other capital projects in the health service that are essential, current expenditure to address waiting lists and other new and future initiatives that I am sure the Minister of State and her colleagues would like to invest in. We cannot unlearn the lessons of the past. This country got itself into dreadful difficulties that the State and every citizen has paid for time and again because of the profligacy of previous Governments. We got that under control from 2011 to 2016. Learn the lessons from that and ensure that public investment in large and essential projects such as this one is done in a transparent way and over which the Government exercises its responsibility and control on behalf of the taxpayer.