Martin Daly Confronts BAM Over €1B Claims and 40-Month Delay

Thank you to both teams, CEO Nugent, Dr Paula Kelly, Dr Michael Reardon, Ms Julia Lewis and Mr Adrian Carroll and also your team, Mr Gunning and Mr Devine. I just want to start, firstly it is deeply disappointing that this date has been put out. Have they given you a new date? So the 30th of April isn't the date, what's the new date? As I suggested, the process under the contract requires the employer's representative to require the contractor to provide a new date. That is happening at the moment. The contractor has 15 working days to respond to that and when we get that response we will then understand what the new date is. That's the process. I just want to ask you, under compelling BAM to fulfil its obligations, there's a dispute there of 40 million euros. Can you just explain that to me? That's because the substantial completion on the contractual date hasn't been achieved and that would have been the 30th of April. Will that figure climb? That figure, if I could explain that figure to you, is the liquidated damages amount. I'm often asked in committees about what is the state's response to BAM's delays. And the state's response is embedded in that item of liquidated damages, that because BAM is in delay, the contract would allow the state to levy, currently calculated to the end of April, that number of 40 million. If the delay is further, that will still increment up further to a particular amount. So that's the state's claim against the contractor for delay. BAM, on the other hand, as you will be aware from what I've read, has a billion euros in claims against the state and we can elaborate on that in more detail. Yeah, but I'd like you to do that actually because I'd like you just to walk us through the claims section there and what that actually means in layman's terms for the state and for the delivery of the hospital and for the exposure of the state to additional cost. I mean a billion euros is a large sum of money in the context of a 1.8 billion capital budget. It's appendix B. It is an enormous amount. Like the employer's representative has only signed off on 53.16 million, 6.6% of the value claimed. So there's a dispute over almost a billion euros. That's correct. So the employer's representative is the first level of the dispute value claim. If the contractor has a claim, they submit that to the employer's representative. She makes a determination of that claim and you're right to point out that on average, if BAM is claiming 100 euros, they're getting 6 euros and 60 cents on each of those claims. That's what the employer's representative. But how can there be such a disparity? Like what are the reasons for such a disparity between a billion and 53 million? I mean that's enormous. This isn't marginal stuff. This is 90% of the claim nearly. And if I could just maybe talk about BAM's claims. I mentioned in the opening statement that 18 of the claims make up nearly 90% of the entire amount. So the money is in 18 individual claims. And all of those are about the extension of time from the contractual completion date, which is December 22. When BAM signed the contract, that was the date in or around mid 22. That has been moved up a few months. But just for purpose of this discussion, end of 22 was when we were supposed to get this hospital. So BAM is claiming for every month since then, right up to now, for the additional monies that they're, our view, and we've made this very clear to BAM, is that they have no entitlement. So is this additional to the 1.8 billion? No, that's it. They're claiming additional on top of the 1.8 billion. So that's the exposure to the state? Exactly. And what I'm saying is, if I was to dig into that in more detail, just to brief, there's a billion euros there. It's clear that in each of, there are many claims in there that are submitted twice and three times. So there's a significant degree of duplication and triplication. I think a more realistic extent of what their claims, if we take out the duplication, is a third of that. But as I've said, even that, we do not believe that BAM has any real entitlement to that money, based on what they're saying. So this is an international construction company that has failed to deliver on all its targets repeatedly, and still can't satisfy many of the requirements of the contract, and they have a claim in for an additional billion euros. I mean, it's really just simply unbelievable. And not only that, not delivering, we're 40 months over, and we still don't have an opening date for the hospital. I mean, it is unconscionable that the state has invested so much money in this, and the infrastructure hasn't been delivered, not just on time, but 40 months over without a definite date of delivery. It's really just mind boggling. And the sums of money involved are as well, in the context of the overall cost of the delivery of this piece of national infrastructure. Coming back to, I don't know what more to say on this, except there will be deep disappointment and there will be severe public disbelief at the lack of delivery here. And the fact that this company seems to have this state over a barrel at every juncture, it's very difficult. Coming back to you, Ms Nugent, and I also want to recognise the hard work and commitment of the staff and CHI, often working in, I would say in the past, I hope it's not the case now, in an organisational structure that set them up to fail. And I don't think I'm understating that. And I sincerely hope that that has changed, and I sincerely hope as we go forward that that's the case. But the individual people who work there are to be commended for their commitment. What preparations have been made, well, if we do get a date, what preparations have been made in terms of staff moving to the new hospital? And over what period of time would that take? So we have a coalition of workers preparing our staff to move both from what our future role in the hospital is, as a role mapping process. So every member of staff, it's easy for myself, I will hopefully still be the CEO of the new hospital, but for a staff nurse who worked on a ward that might have been orthopaedics and surgery, that will just be an orthopaedic ward in the future. So staff have been asked to choose which was their preference. So there's a whole role mapping exercise being done. Do you think you will have adequate staff to open the hospital? If today we were told the 30th of April was the date to open, will you have the staff to open? So seven months after the substantial completion date is our target for day one opening. We have, with the support of the HC and the Department of Health, been approved for 576.6 additional whole time equivalents for the additionality of the building.