Fine Gael accused of concealing truth of €2bn cost of new children’s hospital

FINE Gael ministers and senior officials kept knowledge of major cost overruns at the National Children’s Hospital quiet as they believed there would be a general election in autumn of 2018, Labour deputy Alan Kelly has claimed.

He said last night that the resignation yesterday of the children’s hospital board chairman, Tom Costello, did not come close to ending the controversy of a hospital that is now expected to cost more than €2bn to complete.

Mr Kelly, Labour’s health spokesman, said he believed that two Government Departments, Health and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER), had major questions to answer.

‘The children’s hospital board knew about the overruns in June,

‘Harris knew about the overruns last August’

and a senior civil servant from Public Expenditure sits on the board. Why was his minister and the secretary general not informed?’

The DPER is headed by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.

Mr Kelly also says Health Minister Simon Harris knew about the overruns last August but failed to answer parliamentary questions adequately.

Fine Gael ministers expected there would be a general election before the controversy broke, but Brexit negotiations prevented any election, he contends. Mr Kelly wants Mr Harris, Mr Donohoe and the secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure, Robert Watt, to explain to the Public Accounts Committee why action wasn’t taken on the overruns far earlier.

A Department of Public Expenditure civil servant sits on the board of the children’s hospital. Considering this, Mr Kelly wants to know why the department wasn’t aware of the cost overruns last June, and if it was, why did it not take action. Mr Kelly established through questioning at the PAC that the board was aware of the overruns in June 2018.

‘For instance, when there was a concern in June about overspend, why didn’t the representative of the DPER bring the concerns to the department?

‘Is there not civil servant guidelines that point him in the direction where he would do that? Those guidelines would require him that if there were concerns, and if they were not adequately dealt with that the civil servant would bring them to the secretary general or the minister [at Public Expenditure].

‘We know that in August the minister and the secretary general of the Department of Health were notified officially. We also know that a parliamentary question to the minister for health by Fianna Fáil Deputy Barry Cowen was answered and it did not give the full picture, to be polite.

‘It still stuck to €983m, when they knew then there was at least a €200m overrun already.’ Mr Cowen’s question was answered in September.

‘This, for me, is unacceptable… We know that in October, the DPER was informed, and we know that in November the Minister for DPER and the Taoiseach were informed.

‘I have many questions. Where were DPER in all of this? Why didn’t a representative on the board for the DPER bring these to the attention of officials or his minister?

‘Why did Minister Harris and his officials not make anyone aware of this issue publicly until December and why did he not appropriately answer Barry Cowen’s question?

In response to queries from the MoS, a spokesman for the DPER said its officials attend the Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform and the Budgetary Oversight Committee, as they are mandated to do.

‘It would be unworkable and completely impractical for DPER officials to also attend meetings of each of the 14 sectoral committees. Furthermore, it would cut across the existing lines of accountability which mandate attendance of relevant ministers and officials at the appropriate sectoral committee.

‘The Department of Health has already set out in detail those governance arrangements and the timeline of when the NPHDB [National Paediatric Hospital Development Board] alerted it to the cost escalation and when it communicated the new cost projections to Government and to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.’

Mr Costello, chairman of the children’s hospital board, surprised ministers when he resigned yesterday. It is understood that he had met with Minister Harris at the Department of Health offices on Friday, where they discussed overruns on the controversial project.

A senior source at the Department of Health said: ‘You can expect there to be further personnel changes to do with this project. ’

‘Is it because FG was considering an election?’