Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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511. To ask the Minister for Health the total cost of the contract for IT infrastructure for the National Children's Hospital recently awarded to a company (details supplied), in tabular form; and the impact on any costs arising from delays from the construction of the site to this contract. [38986/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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An EU journal competitive dialogue tender process was completed and awarded in April 2023. The value of the contract is 31.6m euro as approved by the Children's Health Ireland (CHI) board. It provides for a range of hardware and software solutions which are fully managed including servers, storage, backup and recovery, PCs, printers, workstations on wheels and other mobile devices, as well as cyber security solutions.

Some are already deployed and are in use by CHI. Others such as PCs, printers and fully managed services are deferred waiting until the New Children's Hospital is ready to receive them.

There are no additional costs pending for this contract arising from changed completion dates of the construction of the New Children's Hospital. Expenditure on delivery of technology into the new hospital has been deferred, where possible, until such time as it is ready to receive it.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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512. To ask the Minister for Health the commissioning timeline and the cost breakdown for commissioning the National Children's Hospital site once construction is complete. [38987/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Government is committed to seeing this world-class hospital for the treatment of children open as soon as possible.

There is a significant ongoing programme of work to prepare for the opening of the new children’s hospital, under the Children’s Hospital Programme.

The Children’s Hospital Programme encompasses the integration of the existing hospitals, the commissioning of the satellite centres and the new hospital site, and the delivery of advanced ICT systems and the Electronic Healthcare Record. The two satellite centres at Tallaght and Connolly, which represent major milestones in the programme, have been commissioned and are open.

A major aspect of the commissioning work is the onsite operational commissioning phase. This is the phase following substantial completion of the new children’s hospital and before the opening of new hospital. With over 4,600 clinical spaces, this will be a complex phase. In preparation for this phase, CHI started the pre-commissioning phase in July 2023. This pre-commissioning phase will continue until substantial completion of the building and handover to CHI when the operational commissioning period of at least 6 months will commence.

The budget for the new children’s hospital, as approved by Government in February 2024, is €2.24 billion. This includes c.€1.9billion for the capital construction projects and c.€360m for Children’s Hospital Programme.