Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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320. To ask the Minister for Health the person that held his office when the two stage procurement strategy was agreed and signed off upon for the new national children’s hospital. [9136/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) has statutory responsibility for planning, designing, building and equipping the new children's hospital and outpatient and urgent care centres in accordance with a brief approved by the HSE with the prior consent of the Minister, and subject to any subsequent variations to this brief as may be determined by the Executive in consultation with the Board, and with the prior consent of the Minister.

Under the relevant statutory instrument National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (Establishment) Order 2007 (S.I. 246 of 2007) the Minister, Dr James Reilly T.D. consented in June 2014, followed by HSE approval, to a project brief which enabled the NPHDB to appoint a design team. The project brief did not at that stage specify the two stage procurement approach.

The NPHDB has advised that the two-stage procurement strategy was developed by the NPHDB over the course of 2014 and 2015 with the involvement of the Government Contracts Committee for Construction (GCCC), and finalised in the early part of 2016 when, prior to the issue of the new children's hospital tender documentation, meetings were held with the GCCC to reaffirm the procurement strategy. The NPHDB initiated the tender process, for which Ministerial approval was not required, in June 2016. Tender bids were received by NPHDB at the end of October 2016. I brought a Memorandum to Government in April 2017 advising of the outcome of the process and the associated capital costs and seeking approval for the construction investment decision.