Will Children’s Hospital construction debacle ever end?

The saga of building the New Children’s Hospital (NCH) goes on and on.

At the end of last month, Mr David Gunning, Chief Officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), provided a comprehensive update on the project to the joint Oireachtas committee on health.

The main contractor, BAM, commenced above-ground works in January 2019. Over the past seven years, Mr Gunning said the expected date for substantial completion had been revised 18 times.

The latest programme updates had indicated a date of 30 April 2026 for the work to be finished. However, Mr Gunning said this too would be missed.

The 30 April date is approximately 40 months later than the previous revised contractual completion date of 2 December 2022. The independent third party administering the contract, the employer’s representative, is currently reviewing the most recent programme update to assess its compliance with contractual requirements.

On 19 December, BAM granted partial early access, enabling Children’s Health Ireland and the NPHDB to begin operational commissioning works on level 6, which are now complete. Further early access was provided to the lower ground level and level 0 in February and March, respectively.

Works completed to date across these three levels include clinical cleaning, as well as the delivery, installation, and commissioning of more than 5,500 items of medical, non-medical, and ICT equipment.

“We are currently awaiting early access to levels 1 and 2, operating theatres, and critical care departments to complete BAM’s early access commitments,” according to Mr Gunning.

“These levels are crucial to support the operational commissioning schedule for CHI post substantial completion.”

To reach substantial completion, BAM needs to deliver more than 400 rooms each week. By 20 March 2026, it had handed over 3,726 of the 5,728 rooms to the design team for checks against the contract standards.

Mr Gunning said the NPHDB is using all available contractual measures to push BAM to meet its completion obligations.

On 13 March, the Minister for Health, health management officials, and the NPHDB met senior figures from Royal BAM, including its Chief Executive and executive board Chair, seeking assurances about the project.

The Minister has repeatedly expressed her frustration about the delays, as previous Ministers had done.

In February 2024, the Government approved increased capital and current funding, bringing the total capital allocation for the NPHDB element of the project to €1.88 billion.

The Minister has repeatedly expressed her frustration about the delays, as previous Ministers had done

So far, the NPHDB has spent €1.644 billion, including VAT, on the project. The Government-approved budget increase also made provision for elements that were not included in the original 2018 estimate, many of which had already been identified in an independent PwC review in early 2019.

That report described the NCH as an undertaking of unusual scope, scale, and complexity.

It highlighted a range of risks that had the potential to put further pressure on the budget. These included potential contractor claims under the contract, the final cost of provisional sums, construction inflation exceeding 4 per cent, the need to strengthen the NPHDB’s executive capacity, and the contractor’s entitlement to seek additional payments under public works contract provisions.

Although many of the issues had been predicted, the multiple delays and escalating costs in the construction of the hospital since 2019 are still hard to fathom. And these delays were following on from the controversies around site selection that plagued the project in the preceding years.

Mr Gunning told the committee: “We will inch forward and we will get there.”

Given the journey so far, it can only be hoped that the end is finally in sight.