The ever-spiralling costs of the development of the National Children’s Hospital will surely go down as one of the biggest scandals in Irish political history
Aontú Cllr Emer Toibin says
“Just when I think this whole debacle can’t get worse; it does”.
“The Hospital Board is now facing a claims bill of €880 Million from the Construction Company BAM which is absolutely nuts. To think that claims now far exceed the original cost of the construction of the hospital which stood at €650 Million is literally mind boggling. The fact that these are claims which will in turn have to be defended means that the costs will rack up even more.
The lack of oversight is absolutely breathtaking. It is apparent that the most rudimentary oversight and forward planning did not take place when this contract was awarded and anybody with even the most basic grasp of budgeting would know that safeguards should have been put in place to prevent this unmitigated shambles.
I would like to know who drafted the original contracts and omitted to insert stage by stage safeguards – a lack of foresight and protective measures in the contract has turned what should have been a tightly managed build into a legal and financial quagmire — and, as always, the taxpayer is left footing the bill.
This has really been a disaster from start to finish and we’re nowhere near the finish line yet.
Not only has its completion missed 16 deadlines, and there are no guarantees whatsoever that it will even open now in July of next year, it is costing billions with the final estimate expected to be in the region of €2.4 Billion.
It is shocking and shameful and the lack of accountability is a damming indictment of this Government.
Remember it has been in Government for the past 15 years, in one form or the other and has stood by while the costs have gone completely out of control and the opening date resembles something out of Hans Christian Anderson’s fables.
Bear in mind that this is the National Children’s Hospital; children and their parents desperately need this facility and the ongoing scandal of its staggering costs and lack of opening does not seem to have this Government as exercised as it should be.
The Board of the Hospital is involved in public spats, High Court injunctions and other legal wrangling with the developers and all the time this Government is looking on as it has nothing to do with this disaster.
We know that Simon Harris signed off on it when he was Minister for Health, despite publicly and disingenuously trying to distance himself from any responsibility and yet he has not been held to account for this unmitigated disaster that is the NCH.
Aontú has been consistently calling for accountability on this and a whole swathe of other examples of reckless spending of public money and until such time that Government Ministers are actually accountable for their actions or lack thereof, we will have shameful situations like this.
