Despite the expected completion of the new National Children’s Hospital being slated for February 2025, doubts are increasingly cast over this delivery date. The development board for the National Paediatric Hospital (NPHDB), in charge of this heavily delayed project costing over €2.24 billion, has made the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee aware of new issues likely to cause additional delays.
Dutch construction firm BAM, in charge of constructing the hospital, hasn’t revealed to the NPHDB its plans for meeting the February target. According to the board, the company is violating its contract and faces penalties, although, it refutes these claims.
This conflict is a recurrent issue that typically finds the NPHDB attributing delays and cost escalations to BAM. While BAM has often taken a confrontational approach, the ongoing dispute represents the latest manifestation of an original flaw that has marred the hospital since it was first conceptualised.
In the eagerness to launch the project in 2016, construction started before the hospital design was finalised and budgeted. This standard procedure in similar projects left considerable risk unchecked due to the lack of necessary controls, as discovered by a government-commissioned report from PwC in 2019. An agreed-upon maximum price was established with BAM, but the PwC report highlighted that the procedure had poor coordination and control.
As a result, PwC stated that the project could never have been executed within the agreed financial scope, with most of the blame resting on the NPHDB.
An important insight from PwC states that if the genuine expenditure of the project had been calculated from the beginning, it may likely not have been constructed as it currently stands. It’s prudent to heed this as we anticipate the inauguration of a genuinely top-notch establishment next year, and as we set out future significant governmental investments in the forthcoming years.