Building at hospital must stop

WORK on the National Children’s Hospital must be stopped and the project and its runaway costs must be reassessed.

The offer by the main contractor to pull out if requested should be acted on.

Ministers have been put on the spot as it undermines their claim that it was too late to look at other options for the new building.

No doubt the controversy over rocketing costs has led to the company’s decision and remarks made by the Taoiseach that certain firms should never again receive State contracts has angered BAM management.

The firm is seeking clarification from Leo Varadkar over which firm he was referring to.

Rather than accept the decision to locate the new hospital on the St James’s site was wrong, the Government was willing to plough ahead regardless of the consequences or the expense.

Following the revelation that the costs were effectively running out of control the Government has sought to shift the blame to the contractor.

But the reality is much of the huge overruns are down to the location and the decision to a huge building in a very confined space in the centre of one of the most congested cities in Europe.

Were a children’s hospital and a maternity hospital to be built on a green field site close to the capital it would still prove cheaper than the current project.