The National Children’s Hospital, first mooted as the ultimate solution to Ireland’s issue with providing healthcare to children, was first mooted in 1993. At its original cost, of 650million euros, it would have been very expensive. At its latest revised cost of 1.733billion euros, it would have been the single most expensive healthcare facility constructed by any state in the history of humanity. Yet even that figure now looks remarkably optimistic, and the full extent of cost over-runs is now so great that the figure is, in the words of the Irish Times, “a closely guarded secret”. That’s right: Because of so-called commercial sensitivities, the public is not allowed to know how much money is being spent on this project.
Yesterday, though, some assessments ranged towards the 3billion range. For the record, the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida, from whence every man who ever set foot on the moon departed earth, cost about 1.3billion euros, in today’s money, to build.
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