Construction company BAM has pledged to finish the new national children’s hospital in Dublin by June next year, according to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. The hospital was originally intended to be finished in 2020 at a cost of €650 million, but four years on, the anticipated final cost has skyrocketed to approximately €2.2 billion.
In a recent interview with RTÉ, Mr Donnelly revealed he met with high-ranking officials from BAM the previous week. The focus was a frank and open debate, he said. In the lead-up to this meeting, BAM indicated they would fail to meet not only the November deadline, but also the subsequent March deadline, postponing it to June.
Mr Donnelly pointed out that BAM should assign more personnel on site to handle the challenges the project encountered. He made it clear, though, that the company pledged to meet the June deadline. He expressed his desire to see a timeline where the hospital board, acting on his behalf, supports this belief.
The Health Minister and the board believe that the main issue is the insufficient number of workers on site. Despite the complexities involved, the root problem was the lack of people working on the hospital project. Mr Donnelly emphasised that BAM had agreed to uphold the June deadline and suggested that the board should consider speeding up the work of “commissioning teams” to ready the building for operation.