Will we end up paying for Dublin’s mistakes — again?

I’M not sure if the Government has any sense of the depth of public disbelief and the frustration with the saga that is the National Children’s Hospital project. Those of us beyond the Pale are looking on aghast as the final price to be paid is predicted to climb to a level that could be three times what was originally budgeted. The real worry for people down the country is that the overrun will lead to cutbacks on planned capital projects and once again the rest of the country will pay for Dublin’s mistakes.

I was at our local café on Saturday and all the talk was about this new hospital and the fiasco it is becoming. One person suggested we should take to the streets before any more money is wasted on the development, but another pointed out that, “When we didn’t take to the streets about the bank bailout, we will never take to the streets. The Government knows that.” Many around the table were of the opinion that the ever-present danger of the UK crashing out of the EU will be used to keep the public quiet.

In the midwest and south, people are afraid that identifiable capital programmes long-awaited and overdue will pay the price, including a proposed 60-bed unit at University Hospital Limerick. Fresh investment in other local health infrastructure could also fall victim to the gaping hole this hospital will leave in the public purse, along with the much-needed motorway link between Limerick and Cork.

There is genuine concern that no one will shout ‘stop’ and, like clockwork toys, we will waddle into paying the bill for the National Children’s Hospital, no matter what it comes to.

The PwC examination into the cost overrun is a late reaction by the Government. While it may find people accountable for sins of omission or commission in relation to the burgeoning bill, I would wager that, no matter what the findings, no one will lose a job, no one will suffer a cent’s reduction in salary or suffer as much as a smudge on their gold-standard pensions.

The project has been fraught with difficulties since the start, not least among them the location of the development. In the course of its gestation, a greenfield site was mentioned, co-location with an adult-teaching hospital was given priority — but access from the rest of the country and indeed from other parts of Dublin was never high on that list.

Building on a greenfield site giving greater access to the rest of the country was the preferred choice of many but co-location with an existing teaching hospital won the day. The importance of this latter condition is clinically disputed. The choice to build on a restricted site in the heart of the city is at the root of many of the cost-overrun problems. Building on a brownfield site is far more expensive than greenfield building, and this project has gone from €405m to €950m before fit-out costs. Meanwhile, road access, parking and even helicopter access is going to be a problem.

The Government has always been and will continue to be heedless in relation to these issues and as the projected completion cost looks set to pass the €2bn mark, they are still not for turning. In the last week or so, they have taken to sending out Bernard Durkan, the Stonewall Jackson of Fine Gael, to bat for them — a sure sign that they have no intention of listening to anyone.

In one of Health Minister Simon Harris’s recent radio appearances he stated he was not going to be deflected from delivering this hospital for the children of Ireland. The hero mounted his white horse to champion his charges. If he wants to champion the children, he should forget the heroics and just do his job, but there is precious little sign that he and his colleagues in Government are doing this. They appear to be more interested in shoring up their own reputations as they stick with a project destined to cost the children of Ireland for a long time to come.