“Nobody could accurately” predict what the final cost of the National Children’s Hospital will be, and it is “not helpful” to speculate, according to Fianna Fáil Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.
Amid speculation that the final price could surpass €2 billion, Donnelly was asked to give an estimate of how much the long-delayed project could run.
“It’s not helpful for anybody to be speculating,” he said, adding that Sinn Féin was using the project overruns “as a pawn” by saying that it could top €2 billion.
“No one can say right now what the final figure will be.”
Asked whether BAM – the company responsible for the project – would be given future contracts by the State to work on other projects, Donnelly said that “first and foremost we need to make sure the children’s hospital gets finished.” He added that the company’s “previous performance” would be taken into account before any new projects were granted.
“What I will say is I raised this with Cabinet earlier this week,” he said.
“It is important in the awarding of future contracts, and any large infrastructure contracts by the State, that the State is allowed fully incorporate previous performance. I say that without prejudice to any contractor doing any piece of work. But if any of us were asking someone to build an extension or build a conservatory or a wall, you would look to the reputation and the previous performance of that builder before you would hire them in.”
The National Children’s Hospital has featured in the news again recently as it was revealed that just 27 out of 3,000 rooms had been completed.
Company contracted to develop National Children’s Hospital 'not meeting contractual obligations' https://t.co/qotmNOFtHN
— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) July 12, 2023
The project, which has been planned since 1993, was originally to be completed by 2014. However, it only received planning permission from An Bord Pleánala by 2016 to actually begin construction.
At that time, with an initial €650 million in funding for the hospital was set aside, Leo Varadkar as Fine Gael Health Minister told RTÉ that “short of an asteroid hitting the planet,” the hospital would be built by 2020.
However, by 2018, the cost had already ballooned to €1.43 billion – around double the original estimate – and was set to be built August 2022, two years after Varadkar’s assured timeline.
By 2019, the following year, it was found to have reached €1.7 billion, with the expense rapidly snowballing.
In 2021 it was revealed that the Covid-19 lockdown delayed construction of the building until the latter half of 2024 at the earliest.
The latest estimate for the project’s opening is March 2025, with the inflated cost making it one of the most expensive healthcare projects in human history.
New National Children’s Hospital will not open until March 2025, because it ‘cannot open in mid-winter’ https://t.co/Gibr1pqRqj
— Independent Dublin (@DublinIndo) July 13, 2023
The most expensive hospital ever built in human history is the Karolinska University Hospital in the Swedish city of Stockholm. While this too experienced repeated controversial delays, and cost €2.2 billion, it has three times as many beds as the Irish hospital will have.