‘Not a snowball’s chance’ children’s hospital will be finished on time, TD says

By Rebecca Black, PA

There is not a “snowball’s chance” that the new national children’s hospital in Dublin will be completed next year, it has been claimed.

The facility has been beset with delays and spiralling costs since it was first announced almost a decade ago.

The latest estimate on the project is that work on the building at the St James’s site will be completed by October 29th, 2024.

A commissioning programme is likely to take another six months, indicating the doors could open to patients in April 2025.

The Public Accounts Committee also heard that the spend on the project to date is €1.36 billion, and is set to rise further.

A budget of €1.43 billion had been approved.

Children’s Health Ireland is set to bring a memo to Government at the end of this month regarding the final cost of the hospital.

David Gunning, chief executive of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, told the committee that work on the hospital was 92 per cent complete by the end of September 2023.

However, he said in a building of such size and scale the last 10 per cent is the slowest to complete, as it includes all the finishes, system integration and commissioning.

He said the board is in “constant engagement” with constructors BAM to “ensure that the October 2024 substantial completion is achieved”.

“All our efforts are focused on getting certainty on this date,” he said.

In terms of costs, Mr Gunning said by September 30th, 2023, the total amount spent was €1.36 billion, leaving €71 million from the overall budget of €1.43 billion.

Eilish Hardiman, chief executive of Children’s Health Ireland, said the operational commissioning phase is likely to take around six months.

However, Labour TD Alan Kelly contended: “There is not a snowball’s chance in hell” the hospital will be completed by October 2024.

He also challenged those giving evidence to contradict him if they did not believe the final cost of the project wouldn’t be “substantially over two billion euro”. There was no response.

“I don’t think there is a snowball’s chance of the October deadline being met next year,” he said.

“I just don’t think that the handover positioning is going to be the stage that will allow this to happen so that we will not have this six months after that.

“I’d be even surprised if this is up and fully operational in 2025 at all based on the evidence that you have given us here.

“The fact is this project is going well north of over two billion euro, I would expect possibly even close to 2.5 billion euro. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that.”