David Cullinane: Hospital project has been a disaster

It could be argued that you dropped a bombshell by saying that PAM has now informed you and indeed you have informed us that the completion date at the end of April, which was completion date 18, will not be met. But it's not a bombshell because nobody believed that it was going to be met in the first instance. Clearly from the data that was provided even for this meeting that wasn't going to be the case. And that's just an illustration of how bad this process and how bad this project has been. It has been a disaster from start to finish because we're dealing with massive cost overruns, billions of euro of taxpayers' money, 18 completion dates which have come and gone, design changes, and all of the problems that we've had with the project. And fundamentally a flawed contract that was an absolute disaster. I hope we never see the likes of that contract again. And bizarrely it was a contract that was signed off on by the current Minister for Finance, Simon Harris, which is even more bizarre. So this has been a disaster. But I want to concentrate on where we need to go now. Because I think for a long time to come we'll be talking about this hospital. Because all of the cost overruns, the claims that are in the High Court, I think will be still adjudicated upon when the hospital is built, whenever that will be, and when it's open, whenever that will be. So I just want to come to some of the main dates which we now have and we don't have now because they've changed again, to get some sense for the public as to when this hospital will be open. And there are so many moving parts to it. So I just want to start with the obvious place, which is the completion date at the end of April. It's now not going to happen. As you said, the employers representative has to seek a new update. We'll see what that new date will be. But there's still a majority of rooms, 51% of the rooms, which still have to be completed. That's 400 rooms a week obviously to meet that target of April which won't be met. I also understand as well that there is problems with commissioning services, which is obviously a real big problem as well in terms of getting to an end date. And one of those areas is in the area of ventilation. So can you talk to me a bit about that? The rooms which need to be complete, the ventilation system which is still not fully commissioned. How troublesome is that in terms of getting to a completion date from your perspective? Thank you Deputy Cullinan. I'm going to ask Phillip to come in on the details of that because he's there. I said it in the opening statement and I think it's critically important to get this right, which is we will not accept anything that is not at the required standard from this contractor. We can't. Even if the pressure was on to get this done sooner, if it's not right, it has to be right. Just to make that point, in terms of this, I've got to hand over to Phil. We've been monitoring BAM's progress in great detail from the very start. But I would say even more closely since I think November 24 we started a very strong engagement process. Maybe Phil can talk about the room completions and the ventilation or commissioning issues. We have very limited time so I just wanted to hear about those services which have not been commissioned like ventilation and the rooms which have not been complete. In your estimation how long is it going to take to get that done? I suppose Deputy, you mentioned the 400 rooms per week. BAM are averaging about 200 rooms per week. That's kind of what the run rate is and the offers. That is all about just bringing these rooms to the right standard. We're talking about marks on floors, scrapes on floors, scrapes on walls, that kind of stuff. Resolving fire doors to make them compliant with the contract. It's a volume exercise. All that needs to deliver that quicker is more resource on the project. It's as simple as that. It's a volume exercise. In terms of the commissioning, it's a little bit more complex. David illustrated the importance of this is a very highly regulated hospital. It's a tertiary hospital. The ventilation systems in particular are really, really important. That's all about the right air changes which we do have. It's all about ventilation systems that don't create a lot of acoustic or noise issues. The challenge that we're having currently on the project in meeting and being compliant with the contract is that some of these ventilation systems, whilst operating correctly, are creating more noise than they should. Why is that important? It's important because if they're too noisy, they'll disrupt the clinical service. Do you know what's causing that? It's to do with the way they were coordinated. Basically, there's an outline. There's a design that's done by our consultant. Then the contractors come in. The mechanic electric contractors come in. They coordinate all the services. They move it around to help them build it in a certain way. How big a problem is it to solve that? They are systematically working through each of the floors. We had challenges on the early access floors that Mr. Gunning mentioned on level 6, level LG and level 0. They have worked pretty much through those. I suppose my question is, could this delay the handover by weeks, by months? It's very hard to determine at the very point because we're waiting on the BAM and their specialist subcontractors to come back and tell us the extent of the challenge. We still have beds or rooms that need to be validated. We have problems with commissioning services. We have resources not being deployed by the contractor. We have another completion date which has come and gone. I'm sure you can understand our frustration because I don't know how many times you've been in through the health committee. Again, we have another session of the health committee in the middle of or in early 2026. We still can't tell the public when the hospital will be open. It's just really, really frustrating. Ms. Nugent, if I can come to you because I agree the hospital obviously has to be opened when it's safe to open it. You guys need the keys. I know you have early access. You say seven months after you get the keys, then you hope to open it. But obviously that will depend, I'm sure, on when you get the keys because there's obviously timeframes when it would be best to move and decant staff. Is that when you say when it's safe to do so? Is that what you mean by it? I know that there's a lot of interest in regards to the prolongation of the substantial completion date and then the opening date pushes potentially into a winter period. We are looking at all options for opening this hospital as soon as possible. For example, we will be looking at how the flu season in the Southern Hemisphere is, so how it would potentially play out for us in the winter. We're looking at vaccination rates. We have also partnered with a lot of other hospitals around the world who have moved. So far we have had engaged in one hospital in Norway who actually moved in the winter of November last year. However, they weren't moving on the scale and size that we were. It was a small unit. So we continue to evaluate the situation. When it comes to the actual day one opening date, we will risk assess is it safe to do so. Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to raise one issue because you mentioned scoliosis waiting lists and you said that when you get it wrong, you put your hands up and so on. There was a case in the public domain recently, a very harrowing case of a Chloe Maurer, 23 from Coolock. Her family are devastated. They have criticized CHI. They say that that person's death was entirely preventable. She died in pain. They talked about her timing out of the system. Can I ask, will there be an investigation into her death and her treatment or lack of treatment? Because her family are again having to take to the media to ask questions, which I think is really difficult in their circumstances. So can I ask, first of all, can you respond to that? And if there will be an investigation into her care or more importantly, lack of care? Can I just say to members generally, we're running out of time, not to put our pretty important questions, sensible questions at the very end when we're running out of time. So we'll allow a minute to answer this question, but I would ask just members in future, because I don't want to be cutting the witnesses off when there's important questions to be answered and families concerned. So Deputy, you know, the death of any young person is devastating and condones to the family. I can't obviously discuss the nature of any one individual, but in relation to an investigation, we, you know, in CHI, when we have unexpected deaths, we investigate them. In relation to timing out of surgery, we have a transition process. So when someone, a young adolescent is approaching time where they may require to transition to adult services, we have a transition clinic with the MATRA hospital to ensure that there is that continuity of care, because the timing of when someone gets their surgery is dependent on, you know, multi-factors given their cardiac state, their respiratory fitness for surgery, et cetera. So there is a process there.