As the Public Accounts Committee hearing today heard of a fifteenth delay in opening for the National Children’s Hospital, Aontú Leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín tackled the Tánaiste over the continued lack of accountability.
He said that Tánaiste Simon Harris was a “blame-shifting expert” and described him as Simon “It wasn’t me” Harris – adding “accountability and yourself are like oil and water”.
Today the PAC heard that the new Children’s Hospital will not receive its first patients until at least June 2026, with further delays possible. Chief Executive of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), David Gunning, said he could offer assurances that this would be the final delay and added that he does not have faith in the contractor for the hospital, BAM.
Peadar Tóibín accused anTánaiste of being “like an under pressure estate agent furiously trying sell an overpriced, extortionate, exorbitant hospital to an increasingly angry people. No one is arguing about the quality of the hospital, but people are rightly angered at this government wasting their money.”
“Leo Varadkar promised that the National Children’s Hospital would be built for €700 million by 2020 save an asteroid hitting the planet. The price has ballooned from €700m to €2.2 billion so far. Today 5 years later, the opening of the hospital has been delayed 15 times. The PAC committee heard that the government still cannot confirm an opening date. The best-case scenario is June 2026. I don’t believe the hospital will be opened by 2027.”
“The National Childrens Hospital is a monument to FF and FG’s waste and blame shifting. Your finger prints are all over €1.5billion extra cost. That money did not appear from thin air, it’s 1.5 billion of tax payer’s money.”
“There is an opportunity cost to that level of waste,” he added. “€1.5b could have paid for the construction of 4,500 homes and provided accommodation for 18,000 people, more than the number of people currently officially homeless in Ireland today.”
However, an Tánaiste hit back saying: “Of course I am responsible. I am responsible for bringing the decision to cabinet. I am going to be responsible for a world class facility.”
He said that “nobody gets everything right in politics…as you sit over there and correct everybody’s homework.”
Deputy Harris accused Tóibín of rehearsing his lines “that you must practice in front of the mirror in the morning”.
“I am responsible, of course I am responsible. I am responsible for bringing the proposal to cabinet, I am responsible for recommending we proceed. And the easiest thing to do in politics if you don’t want to get into any challenging situation is never make a decision. I am also going to be responsible for a world class facility, we are going to be responsible for transforming children’s healthcare,” he said.
In response, the Peadar Tóibín said: “Tánaiste, you signed the contract for the National Children’s Hospital. You are ultimately responsible for this. When I challenged you on this before the general election, you denied signing the contract. You said and I quote, “well of course I didn’t, but continue.” Did you lie to me on live television just days before a general election? Did you lie to the hundreds of thousands of people who were watching that programme? You are a blame-shifting expert, Tánaiste. Simon “It wasn’t me” Harris.”
“The contract for the National Children’s Hospital, your contract, was designed to fail. There is as complete lack of detail in the contract which has turned out to be a blank check for the contractor. It is acknowledged that the design was not complete when it issued the instruction to BAM to begin the Phase B construction works in January 2019. The buck stops with you Tánaiste. What does that sentence mean? If you were a senior executive in any private business, responsible for a delivery of a project that came in €1.5b over budget and is 6 to 7 years late, you would be no longer in that job.”
“Yet here you, still in your job, are insulated from accountability by FF and Independent TDs. How can you enforce a culture of accountability and responsibility at all levels of the civil service and the public service if you, and accountability are like oil and water?”
“PAC heard this morning that BAM has completed only 60 per cent of the progress it was supposed to have achieved in this time frame. It has then been said that that all levers in the contract would be used to ensure that BAM finish the hospital in the agreed times. What levers, what clauses, what mechanisms are in the contract enforce specific outcomes, including timely project completion. Is the 6-year delay not proof that there are not enough levers.”