National Children’s Hospital: Still no completion date for the project, board will tell Oireachtas committee

With no expected completion date set, the board overseeing the construction of the new national children’s hospital (NCH) has strongly criticised project developers BAM, citing a failure to meet various contractual obligations.

David Gunning, chief officer on the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), will on Wednesday tell the Oireachtas Health Committee that the board cannot provide an up-to-date completion date for the hospital, while citing examples of the developer’s low productivity and its failure to provide monthly progress reports.

BAM has not provided a monthly progress report on the project since April 2023, Mr Gunning will say.

“While I understand how frustrating this is for the members, it is very difficult to provide a firm answer on the completion date in the absence of a compliant contract programme,” Mr Gunning’s opening statement to the committee reads.

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The hospital was originally slated to be completed in August 2022. As of June 2023, with 89 per cent of the site completed, BAM have made claims with a substantiated value of €756 million for work on the hospital.

In his statement to the committee, Mr Gunning will also criticise BAM’s perceived low productivity on the project, stating that the developer “is not providing sufficient resources to deliver the hospital”.

Mr Gunning cites BAM’s monthly billing for work at the hospital in illustrating perceived low rates of productivity: “BAMs [sic] monthly billing currently should approximate to €15 million however, in the last number of months, they are below €10 million.”

In the last 12 months, BAM has achieved just 67 per cent of its planned output. The rate of completion fell to 34 per cent at certain points during the last year.

Further to that, per BAM’s project commitments, 3,000 rooms within the hospital complex should be complete by now. To date, however, only 27 rooms are deemed to be complete.

“This continued lack of resourcing together with poor project execution may lead to further slippage of the substantial completion date if this continues,” Mr Gunning’s statement reads.

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Continued delays is the biggest driver of cost on the project, Mr Gunning will tell TDs and senators. “Unless the behaviour of BAM is to change, we may suffer further delays into the period ahead.

The NPHDB said it would issue an employer claim to withhold 15 per cent of payments owed to BAM for work on project, due to its failure to meet contractual obligations.