€5 million spent on legal fees over children’s hospital disputes
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association
The development board of the new children’s hospital has spent more than €5 million on legal fees over the last 12 years.
The Public Accounts Committee heard on Thursday that the serially delayed €2.2 billion project does not currently have a substantial completion date.
The hospital had an original completion date of August 2022, while costs have ballooned from a planned €650 million to an expected €2.2 billion.
David Gunning, chief executive of the New Children’s Hospital Development Board, said its cumulative bill for general legal fees was €5.3 million between 2014 and February 2026.
He said this came from settling, adjudicating and defending €1 billion in claims over disputes with lead contractor BAM.
Mr Gunning told the committee that the employer’s representative, which is an independent party charged with administering the contract, had adjudicated 3,165 claims worth €819 million – and has awarded a net €52 million in favour of BAM.
He said “there’s quite several claims” that have yet to go through “of a similar quantum”, with additional matters before the High Court.
However, he said – notwithstanding litigation – the board was confident it would deliver the project for under its €1.88 billion share of the budget – with the remaining €361 million falling on Children’s Health Ireland (CHI).
CHI transformation director Julia Lewis said that figure was based on a completion date in 2025 – and said it could rise higher depending on when it receives the building.
Speaking to the committee on what was previously supposed to be one of the several revised substantial completion dates, Mr Gunning said he was not in a position to provide a new substantial completion date as BAM had not yet provided a programme update to the employer’s representative.
He said BAM has indicated it will be submitted tomorrow and will then have to be assessed for compliance.
However, on substantial completion, he said: “We are close – it’s months we’re talking about.”
Mr Gunning said it was the board’s view that BAM was not resourcing the project adequately.
“BAM has missed its substantial completion dates. This is primarily due to its failure to deploy sufficient skilled labour and competent management resources to properly supervise the site and maintain effective quality assurance processes.
“As a result, there has been no consistent, right-first-time approach to delivery, and it has also failed to properly programme, co-ordinate and sequence the works logically and efficiently.”
BAM consistently states that it is adequately resourcing the project and that the development programme has evolved in response to “instructed design changes” and “additional scope” during the project, with each updated completion date reflecting those changes rather than “any failure of performance”.
However, the development board’s project director Phelim Devine said design is not delaying completion as he blamed “rework and closing out defects”.
He told the committee there had not been any design change on the project in 2026 that had impacted physical work on site, adding that there had been “no material change to design and functionality” to the building since 2019.
“If you go back nine months, it’s 58 issues in 58 rooms. If you go back 18 months, it’s, I think, 200 issues in about 200 rooms.”
“And I’m going to give you an idea of what they are, they’re very simple issues. It’s moving a socket in a room, or it’s actually adding an emergency light.”
He acknowledged there had been 23,500 reissues of drawings – with 6,000 core drawings associated with the project going through revisions.
After the completion of construction, the hospital will also require an estimated seven-month commissioning period before it is ready for use.
