Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Acting Leader about reports concerning the continuing cost overruns at the national children's hospital. As he knows, the original plan was that the national children's hospital would cost €987 million. The capital budget approved by the Government then ran to €1.433 billion. When I had a Commencement matter on this at the end of March, I was assured by the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, that we were looking at a cost of €1.7 billion. That is not a criticism of him, as he spoke on the basis of figures provided. The Minister of State assured me at that time that hospital construction would be completed by December 2023, with it being opened in the second half of 2024. I asked for a ballpark assurance at the time that the €1.7 billion would be the cost at the which project would top out. He told me that based on the figures provided to him, that was what we were looking at.

However, when we look at the story today - Jennifer Bray covers this in The Irish Times -we are now potentially looking at a project costing well in excess of €2 billion. A question has to be asked here. This is something for which, at some level, the oversight group responsible for managing the cost of this needs to be called to account. Everyone is in favour of building the national children's hospital. We know we need it as a matter of urgency. We want a world-class facility, but the costs have just gone out of control. It seems there is nobody being held to account for the fact that these costs continue to spiral out of control. Whether it is done by the Oireachtas health committee or by the Committee of Public Accounts or whether a separate audit is needed, an examination of this project needs to be held. It needs to be gone into in detail to understand why costs have overrun to the extent they have.

People do not have confidence in public projects when they see that the level of spending has so much exceeded its budget. There is always allowance for variance, but the fact that this is now gone way over budget is simply unacceptable. If this were a private contract, or if somebody were building their own home, they would be calling in the builder and everyone else asking why these costs are running so far out of control. We need to hold somebody to account. We need to know why this is the case. Whether it is through a debate in this House or whether the Committee of Public Accounts or the Oireachtas health committee investigates this in detail, I think the public deserves answers.