Final cost of new children’s hospital likely to grow again
THE final cost of the National Children’s Hospital is likely to surpass the latest €2.24bn estimate – despite Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s insistence no more money will be spent on the development, a source close to the project said.
This week, the Taoiseach finally admitted that the bill for the hospital, which has been plagued by delays and cost over-runs, has now reached an eye-watering €2.24bn.
Mr Varadkar insisted to the Dáil that this will be the maximum funding for the hospital, adding the Government ‘will not be allocating any more’.
However, he did not specifically say if he was referring to the current Coalition or a future government. And a source closely involved with the project said this weekend that it is impossible to know the full price until after the contractors, BAM, have left the site and all claims – valued at hundreds of millions of euros – are settled in court.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I think the Taoiseach would like that figure to be the final price, but the truth is he doesn’t know and neither does anyone else.
‘This story is not over by a long way. The claims have yet to be settled… they [BAM] haven’t won many of the claims but it’s still an unknown variable.’ The source added the full fit- out of the hospital ‘still has to happen’, and that potential changes are likely to ‘push up costs’.
‘The budget is there for that [the fit out] but we’ve already seen problems where things had to be redone; you had medics complaining things weren’t right. That could push up costs.
‘I think it’s rash to say that’s the final price when we still don’t even have an opening date.’
The same source told the MoS last June that the cost of the hospital had already surpassed €2bn.
He also said at the time that the hospital would not be ready to open until the end of 2025.
Asked this week about when work on the hospital will finally be finished, Mr Varadkar could only say construction will be completed ‘later this year’.
The Taoiseach said the hospital will be open and treating children ‘next year’, adding the finished hospital will be ‘comparable if not superior’ to hospitals across the EU.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald described the projected cost of €2.24bn as ‘staggering’ and said she had ‘no confidence’ this will in fact be the final cost.
In a pre-Christmas interview with the MoS, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly admitted the hospital is unlikely to start treating patients before the next General Election.
He said that, while he hopes the hospital will finally be completed by the end of this year, he acknowledged the facility – which will be one of the most expensive hospital developments anywhere in the world – is unlikely to admit patients before the next national election, which is scheduled to take place in March next year at the latest.