Cathy Bennett presses on National Children's Hospital costs and delays

Deputy Bennett you might continue in that vein. Thank you Cathaoirleach. I'm going to start off just again just to get back to the nitty-gritty. So at the start there Mr. Gonning you mentioned 1.64 billion of a bill that has been spent so far on the National Children's Hospital, is that correct? So why in 2024 was it 2.24 billion was that figure was pushed around? Does that include something else or? I would suggest that that is the overall cost which is both NPHDB and CHI costs. And what's the additional cost for then in between the build and the... My purview is the 1.88 billion which is the current budget for the NPHDB's costs. And that is the cost of the design, build, equip, commission and handover. And it is our intention and we are confident we'll deliver the project within that. What has been spent to date is 1.648 billion. So you're saying 1.88 will be the total cost? It's the NPHDB element of it. CHI has other elements and perhaps they can speak to those. Okay so maybe Miss Nugent you can explain to me where the additional money then relates largely to our electronic health care record. But I might hand over to our transformation director to explain it in more detail. So how much is that for just? So we have an approved budget for commissioning which includes the EHR and the commissioning of the hospital of 361.6 million. Still doesn't add up does it? What's the total there you said again? We have 361.6 million of which 41 million is sitting in contingency. What is that for again? That is for commissioning the hospital and putting in the electronic health care record. We also are responsible for the ICT equipment and the laboratory equipment. Yeah that's 2.2. Okay it does, yep. Okay and then so then and that nine, you're saying that that'll all be commissioned within nine months is that correct? Seven months from the date of substantial completion. In which month then? When we get the substantial completion date it'll be seven months after that. Okay so at this stage then we will be into 2027. Again similar to Mr. Gunning I don't want to speculate on a date because I'm very conscious of disappointing. So we had initially we were told last year it was definitely going to happen in 2026 but it's not going to happen in 2026 now. It is unlikely. It's going to be 2027. Okay but you'll be confident that the activation period you actually had previously said nine months but now you've brought that down to seven months so you're going to. Yeah our commission team have worked extremely hard to reduce that. How did you reduce that time to seven months? So the nine months, it was originally one year within the definitive business case and it came down to nine months and then we have moved it sorry we have moved it down to seven months and we've done that because of early access. So the early access period that we when we talk about floor six lower ground, ground floor one and two and that allows us access into the building before substantial completion and to be able to put in a significant amount of equipment and that helps us take off and get us down to seven months. We won't be able to go down further than seven months because if we were doing an electronic health care record by itself that is a six month program and we actually have to load the building before we can start that. Okay and then just in relation to is there staff already employed in the hospital? For the new hospital? Yes. We have commenced the what we call the day one numbers recruitment and so they're the first tranche of them are due to start on the 1st of July and even with the prolongation those staff will be put to good use. In the first tranche it's 117 staff. 117 staff with no patients. No but part of that staffing is actually to address safer staffing for existing sites. So there is a tool which says how many nurses for example you should have in across your entities depending on the acuity and CHI was the last hospital to use the safer staffing tool because the national safer staffing tool does not apply to pediatrics because the ratios are different. So those staff the majority of those staff are going to correct the safer staffing issue in the first instance. Okay so you're going to have a hundred and seventeen staff from July so there's going to be a wage bill there every month. How much will that cost every month then going forward until we have actually people in the hospital? How much are we going to pay monthly? I don't have that broken down but we can supply it to the Commission. Could you give it to me before the end of the meeting? So 117 staff at the start of July but there's not going to be actually any patients on site right? It is a safe part of it is for safer staffing. I'm just thinking of the additional income it's costing. Those staff however will also allow our existing staff first of all they have to be trained in relation to the building the electronic health care record etc and but they will also then be able to free up existing staff to be trained etc. So where are those existing staff at the moment? Pardon? In the other hospitals the existing staff? We have 4,600 staff at the moment and then just 117 additional. That's for phase zero in total we're getting 576.6 additional staff that's for the safer staffing and then the additionality of the building. So for example we are going from 15 theatres eventually to 22 theatres. We're increasing our critical care. So just if I can have a cost estimate on how much it's going to cost for the staff with still patients in the hospital. In terms of claims and disputes between the board that have been adjudicated and resolved. How many claims have been adjudicated or resolved to date? In terms of adjudications, I'll open my adjudications table here. Adjudications happens it's it's it's kind of parallel to the to the contract it's under the Construction Contracts Act and there have been 16 adjudications to date. Resolved? It's a process with the beginning and end. These are done. Okay so so let me give you the details I'm not going to go through them but in aggregate terms. BAM sought an adjudication amount through adjudication of 72.8 million and the in terms of what was awarded at the end value of the adjudications decision was 4.9 million. So it's approximately seven it's very similar to the to the number Phelan mentioned earlier about what the ER has awarded. It's it's a similar percentage. So BAM looked for 72.8 million but they got 4.9 million and that's on top of the money that they've been paid as well. So yeah okay and then just I've just somebody just asked me in relation to abortive fees for professional services. Have you paid out anything for them services? No no professional services have aborted whilst in the project? No no no that's okay. Okay and then so yeah I got the total value of you. Okay I think yeah so how do you feel then I suppose David in relation to BAM? Do you regret that BAM were the project contractor on site? This is this is a kind of a fact-based committee rather than feelings committee yeah I do I do think but I mean yeah we are beyond frustration. The idea just to say in a month ago the contractor informed us that they wouldn't hit today's date for substantial completion. A month before that they were giving us assurance that they would hit the 30th of April 2024. We've met you know we meet regularly with BAM and there's been as you've said the minister has been involved in these meetings. They have come to our board they have given assurance time and again at these large set pieces of when we're going to get things. It hasn't happened and our view this is entirely a resourcing problem. We're just not resourcing it sufficiently to deliver to the timeline. They're not managing the resources on the on the on the ground sufficiently to get the return that they need and this is leading to delay after delay on top of the the rework. It's all very well to do something but if you have to go back and do it again you know it's the cost for BAM but for the children of Ireland it's delay and it's unacceptable. It's a cost to the taxpayer. But it's a delay to the treatment of the children of Ireland. I think that's the that's obviously a significant issue. And tell me you said earlier it was four high court claims 164.7 million isn't that correct? That includes the taxation element so the number we work with is if you take the VAT or RCT off that is 145 million is the the number that that the Development Board under the contract has paid in bonded payments to the contractor. Now just just to be clear what this is right. Through the conciliation process if the conciliator makes a recommendation and we have issued a notice of dissatisfaction on those but still under the contract we're required to pay over that money. So that money has been paid over over to BAM but it's bonded. What the CNAG mentioned was it's a bonded payment it has a we have a bond and it's an on-demand bond that we can call if we want to get that money back in certain circumstances. Okay very good so but the state what worries me is that the state continues to use BAM as a contractor you know after all of this have we not learned from our mistakes you know so I just I just want to put it on the record yeah maybe you can answer me that. I understand. We are bound by public procurement rules. But obviously your public procurement rules aren't working because BAM come in at a set price on this and this has gone from this the price of this hospital has gone from 650 million initially up to 1.64 billion now. So where does procurement come into that? How can somebody go in with a procurement price and then at the end of the package it's going to cost 1.88 billion. Well I think we'd be happy to correct that. So I don't think your procurements working too well. It's the public procurement deputy to be fair. I know but it's not working. But I agree with some of the context there in terms of we have very clearly set out in terms of deeper review of accelerating infrastructure the department submissions to that we're very clear that we're concerned about the European procurement rules and the high bar that is set for us to try and disallow future contractors for past performance under public procurement rules and they're there for good reason. We're not allowed to discount poor behavior on a past project. We're not allowed to take that on board and we feel BAM aren't the only poor contractor. I'm sure the state has suffered but I would also like to call out that we have many many good contractors around this country indigenous tier one, tier two, tier three. Contractors that come in with the price initially that is now three times the price. Well no. I wouldn't call that, well not good value for money for a start. Yeah thank you.