Bills never red flagged

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL: DÁIL PANEL TOLD OF CONTRACTORS’ ‘RECORD’ IN KERRY

A DÁil committee debate on the spiralling cost of the National Children’s Hospital has been told that the project contractor BAM’s previous record in Kerry should have been examined when the merits of its tender to build the hospital were being assessed.

In 2013 BAM Ireland – the Dutch owned company hired to build the Children’s Hospital – was awarded a €30 million contract to construct the Tralee bypass, however the firm subsequently submitted a claim seeking an additional €46 million, excluding VAT, from Kerry County Council.

Before the completion of the Tralee project, BAM was also awarded the contract for the Castleisland bypass. This was initially supposed to cost €14 million but BAM later made a claim for an extra €9.18 million.

After lengthy conciliation talks Kerry County Council agreed settlements with BAM regarding both projects but the terms of the deals – and the actual amounts paid out to BAM – have never been revealed publicly by the local authority.

Last Wednesday day during a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health debate on the cost overruns at the National Children’s Hospital site both Kerry Fianna Fáil TD John Brassil and Cork North Central Sinn Fin TD Jonathan O’Brien raised the issue of the Kerry bypass projects.

Deputy Brassil, then a member of Kerry County Council, had raised serious concerns about BAM’s bypass bill – and the tendering process as a whole – when the details of the firm’s increased claim for the Tralee project emerged in mid 2014.

“Either there is something very wrong with the system used to award contracts or we are dealing with an unscrupulous contractor who used a low price to buy the contract,” he said at the time.

At Wednesday’s committee hearing he again raised BAM’s record in Kerry.

“Yesterday the Minister announced Fred Barry, the former CEO of the NRA, as the new chair. At least Mr Barry is conversant with and has knowledge of overspending on contracts because he was the CEO of the NRA when two projects in Kerry, the bypasses of Tralee and Castleisland, overran by €55 million,” Deputy Brassil said.

“The records will show who the contractor was on that occasion. There is a striking similarity with the contractor for the national children’s hospital,” said Deputy Brassil.

Deputy O’Brien told the committee that BAM’s record in Kerry and Cork could have been used – under EU procurement guidelines – as justification to question BAM’s “low tender” for the hospital project.

“The EU procurement guidelines are very clear. They grant the ability to question low tenders,” Deputy O’Brien said.