The principal contractor on the delayed National Children’s Hospital in Dublin has set June 2025 as its most recent completion date, an Oireachtas committee is due to be told this week.
That is 31 months behind the current contractual completion date of November 2022 and four months later than a date provided to the Public Accounts Committee (Pac) last May.
David Gunning, chief officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), the body overseeing the project, is due to provide an update on construction to the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday.
In it, he is expected to outline continued frustrations with the protracted build and contractor Bam, as escalating costs associated with the project have now reached a total of €2.2 billion.
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Mr Gunning is expected to tell committee members that since September 2023, Bam has achieved 64 per cent of its planned progress, on average. He will point to a failure in it adequately resourcing the build and a continued movement in completion dates that have prompted ongoing controversy.
He will also raise the issue of incomplete rooms, in terms of acceptable building standards. The board has moved to withhold 15 per cent of certified payments.
In addition, Mr Gunning will tell politicians the contractor is pursuing a “strategy” to put pressure on the State to secure more money than is in its build contract. However, he will point out, Bam will “not be given another cent”.
The NPHDB was appointed by the Minister for Health in 2013 to design, build and equip a state-of-the-art new facility but it has since become embroiled in deepening controversy over costs. Although construction is approaching its final stages, considerable recent focus has been on building standards.
The committee will be told that over the last four years the contractor has moved its “substantial completion date” 14 times, and it now stands at June next year.
Last week, it emerged the NPHDB is to seek damages from Bam with a claim which could run to more than €20 million.
Addressing the latest issues surrounding the children’s hospital, Taoiseach Simon Harris said penalties were being applied in the contract.
“It is a statement of fact that when you drive by, there’s the building. It’s a statement of fact that a huge amount of development has happened,” Mr Harris told reporters in New York where he is attending meetings at the United Nations.
“It’s also a process though. Before any public body would sign off, they go through room by room, step by step, and there’s absolutely a long list of issues.”
He said it was “absolutely right and proper” that the board was standing up for the taxpayer, as were the Minister for Health and the Government.
The Taoiseach added that changes to EU procurement rules would mean the past performance of a company would be taken into account before any other contract was awarded.
Bam recently told The Irish Times it was “fully confident” in the quality of its construction work and that the handover of rooms and desnagging of minor issues was “routine”.
A spokesman said the build phase was 93 per cent complete “based on the original scope, notwithstanding the additional work generated by the significant number of design changes”.
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