David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1344. To ask the Minister for Health to list all of the handover dates for the new children’s hospital, in chronological order, from the original target date, in tabular form. [49003/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The timely completion of the National Children’s Hospital Ireland (NCHI) is a Government priority. Everything possible is being done to ensure this world-class hospital will open as quickly as possible, on behalf of children, young people, and their families.

At the St. James’s campus site, work towards substantial completion of the hospital is in its final stages. The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) is focused on ensuring all rooms and spaces within the hospital are completed to the standard set out in the Contract and befitting a world class healthcare facility. In addition, the technical commissioning of the hospital’s mechanical and electrical systems is underway and will continue until substantial completion.

Ultimately, substantial completion is informed by the main contractor BAM’s programme of works and its delivery against that programme. On 28 August, BAM submitted an updated programme of works. The Employer’s Representative-(ER) the independent third party responsible for administering the contract - is now reviewing this programme update for contractual compliance. It is for BAM to commit to a date when it will complete the building to the contractual standards.

The NPHDB has and continues to apply all possible contractual levers available to it to ensure substantial completion can be achieved with minimal further delays.

The table below sets out BAM’s movement of its substantial completion dates, as advised by the NPHDB

The original contractual completion date was August 2022, but mechanisms within the public works contract allow for extensions of time to be granted for legitimate delays suffered by the contractor. The current contractual completion date after agreed extensions of time are incorporated is November 2022.

Timeline of programme delays from August 2022*