The latest deadline for the completion of the multi-billion euro New Children’s Hospital is set to be missed by more than three months, with the project now unlikely to be finished until September, TDs will be told.
National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) chief executive David Gunning is expected to tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that construction firm BAM’s progress is “insufficient” for the June deadline to be met.
The development will be the 15th time the project has failed to meet its final deadline since 2020, and that a pre-general election government promise for work on it to be finished this June will now be broken.
In February, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said that she expects the New Children’s Hospital to cost close to €2.24 billion including commissioning costs, and that it will be opened in 2026.
In his opening address to the PAC, Mr Gunning is expected to say that BAM has to date completed 60% of the planned progress on the project.
He is also expected to say that BAM is in his view behind schedule on all key performance indicators relating to the June deadline.
Mr Gunning will tell TDs the June completion deadline is now not possible, and that a new deadline of September has been put forward – a situation which will further delay the physical opening of the hospital to patients.
TDs are also likely to be told that on 6 May BAM indicated to the NPHDB that the June deadline could not be met.
They will be told that the NPHDB has been working with BAM since then to confirm a work schedule that will allow for the project to now be completed by September.
