Contractor building new National Children’s Hospital ‘needs to step up’

The contractor building the new National Children’s Hospital needs to “step up” and divert more resources to complete construction in line with agreed timelines, the Health Minister has said.

Stephen Donnelly said there had been delays to the project that were not acceptable.

The minister said contractor BAM was seeking to push the handover date back from March next year to May.

The plan to build a state-of-the-art paediatric hospital in Dublin has been mired in controversy over recent years over where it would be sited, how much it will cost and the repeated delays to when it will be in operation.

The Covid-19 pandemic further disrupted project timelines.

“My view on this is very clear,” Mr Donnelly told reporters in Dublin.

“The contractor has an obligation to deliver according to its contract.

“There were some inevitable delays to be fair during Covid, but there have been delays to this project which I don’t believe are acceptable, they’re certainly not acceptable to me.

“The contractor has submitted a revised programme of works that I believe shifts the handover date from March to May.

“The board (National Paediatric Hospital Development Board) hasn’t accepted that schedule of works, it doesn’t believe that it’s a compliant schedule of works.”

The minister highlighted that the contractor had lodged a “very significant number” of claims arising from the project.

“I believe greater efforts are required from the contractor, I believe there is more can be done in terms of deploying resources to this site to accelerate the speed at which this is being delivered at,” he said.

“I’m not satisfied at the speed with which it’s being delivered at and so we’re working through various issues in terms of timelines and ensuring the best possible value for money.”

Mr Donnelly said he would continue to engage with the board and Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) to ensure everything that can be done is done in terms of securing value and getting the hospital operational as quickly as possible.

“But my position on this is very clear – the contractor needs to step up, the contractor needs to deploy sufficient resources to bring this project in according to… the latest timelines that it gave, which were March,” he added.

“And if there is to be a further delay to May that needs to be agreed in good faith with the board who are doing their very best on behalf of the state.”

The final cost of the project is now set to exceed 1.4 billion euros.

Mr Donnelly said it was “very difficult” to estimate the final cost due to the “very large amount of money” involved in unresolved disputed claims involving the contractor and the board.

“It’s difficult at this point to know where that will all settle,” he said.

BAM has been approached for comment.