Will new Children’s Hospital be finished on deadline? It’s hard to say, admits Donnelly
Health Minister says ‘every timetable’ by contractor has not been accurate
‘I would be astonished’ ‘Cost control measures’
HEALTH Minister Stephen Donnelly has indicated that he expects further delays in the construction of the National Children’s Hospital.
The latest programme of works by developers BAM included a timeline for completion of construction in the final quarter of this year.
The Irish Daily Mail revealed in August that the hospital will be completed in 2025 but will not be operational until 2026 and at a total cost of around €2billion, more than €1billion over budget.
Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Health yesterday Mr Donnelly made the first public acknowledgement by a Government minister of the potential for additional delays.
He said that it was ‘really hard to say’ if he was confident that construction would be completed this year.
The minister indicated that the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), the body overseeing the construction, were sceptical of completion dates put forward by the contractor. ‘I would be amazed if the board would say they would be fully confident of any timetable that the contractor has given them, because every single timetable the contractor has given them has proven not to be the case,’ he said.
‘The board will speak for itself, but certainly based on my conversations with the board, they have accepted the programme of works, they are now working to that programme, but I would be astonished if the board would say that they are confident,’ he said.
The NPHDB did not respond to a request for comment last night.
Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane said that every target that had been set had been missed and called for greater accountability. ‘Every single date that’s given is missed, every target that’s set is missed. At some point, the State has to say enough is enough,’ he said.
In 2016, then Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said that ‘short of an asteroid hitting the planet’ the €700million hospital would be built by 2020. Last August, Mr Donnelly said he was ‘deeply frustrated with the ongoing delays from the contractor’ of the National Children’s Hospital.
Yesterday, Mr Donnelly also told the committee that an additional €1billion in non-core funding had been provided to his department in the revised Budget estimates.
The funds will be spent on Covid vaccinations, reducing waiting lists ‘through insourcing and the use of additional private capacity’, increasing capacity to help manage patient flow, support community groups in areas of mental health, older persons and social inclusion as well as funding the Health Resilience Fund to the tune of €432million.
Mr Donnelly said that ‘despite this’ injection of extra funding more will be required at the end of the financial year.
‘It is entirely possible that there will be a substantial supplementary required next year due to inflation and growing patient demand,’ he said.
In October’s budget Mr Donnelly did not receive €2billion in extra funding for his department that he had sought, but the overall budget increased to €22billion.
Our sister newspaper the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Donnelly told Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe that he was ‘insane’ not to grant the extra funding.
The resulting impact on the department meant that it could not progress with new policy initiatives.
Speaking on RTÉ in the aftermath of the Budget, the head of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, said that his organisation faces a funding shortfall of €2.5billion this year and next year and that the level of funding provided is ‘not adequate’.
Mr Donnelly and Mr Gloster established a Productivity and Savings Taskforce, which they jointly chair, in a bid to ‘maximise value for money and patient outcomes’.
One of the key areas identified for potential savings is the use and cost of agency staff.
Mr Donnelly told the committee: ‘The CEO of the HSE has already announced several cost control measures over recent months, including a targeted reduction on expenditure on the use of agency staff within the public health service of 10% and further reductions are being targeted in 2024.
‘There are levers to safely reduce agency costs and many of these are well under way across the HSE.
‘Actions to reduce agency costs will continue and are intended to deliver a higher level of savings this year.’