The new National Children's Hospital might not be open until spring, summer or the autumn of 2027, with builders BAM missing the 18th completion deadline, the chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Health Pádraig Rice has said.
The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board's chief officer David Gunning said BAM made this known at a meeting yesterday that the hospital will not be substantially completed by the end of April.
The committee heard that a new date is due to be provided within 15 days.
Mr Rice said this was deeply disappointing and there were serious lessons to be learned for the State and the Department of Health as regards the project's contract.
In a statement this morning, BAM said It is not accurate or constructive to state that it has continuously missed completion dates.
Watch: David Gunning says the National Children's Hospital will not meet its April deadline
It said the programme has evolved in response to instructed design changes and additional scope during the project.
Each updated completion date reflects these new changes and the resulting need to re-programme the works, rather than any failure of performance, it added.
BAM also said that the reference by the NPHDB to a withholding of 15% of payments is a conditional withholding, under contract, not a penalty.
BAM said it is reimbursed once a compliant programme is in place, and as the current programme is compliant, no monies are being withheld.
The company said it continues to work closely with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board and Children's Health Ireland to deliver the hospital as quickly and safely as possible for the children of Ireland.
Watch: Committee hears NCH opening could be delayed to autumn 2027
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A spokesperson for Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she will write to BAM again, seeking clear confirmation of whether its promised resourcing commitments to complete the hospital have been met and, if not, when they will be.
The spokesperson said BAM had attempted to blur the timelines for completion, proposing partial delivery by 30 April, without a resource-loaded plan or a credible path to finish the job.
'Nobody believed that it was going to be met'
Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Health David Cullinane said the development could not be described as a "bombshell" because "nobody believed that it was going to be met in the first instance".
He said: "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 in 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."
Mr Cullinane told RTÉ's News At One that he thinks it will be complete at the "very earliest" in the summer of next year, adding that "that's an estimation".
Listen: The NCH will miss its 18th deadline for completion of the facility next month
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He said further missed deadlines for the NCH to be completed would be unacceptable.
He added that the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill "needs to at this point take a much more hands-on approach".
Mr Cullinane said "weekly updates" are needed "given the seriousness of this".
"There has to be management from the board and there has to be political management," he said.
"I just don't want us to come to come back again in three or four months time and ground hog day, having the same conversations and the same issues arising again, and still no closer to the hospital being opened and children being treated."
The organisation Children in Hospital Ireland, set up by parents to promote a positive hospital experience for parents and children, has said that a realistic opening date for the new hospital is vital.
The organisation's CEO, Anna Gunning, said that the delay is frustrating, but everyone knows that the hospital will open and it will be an improvement.
She said it looks like there will be another winter of crowded children's emergency departments and that is challenging for parents and frustrating for staff too.
Ms Gunning added that there have been a lot of hopeful completion dates but that just sets up something that is not going to happen, so a realistic date is needed, whatever that date is.
The committee also heard there were concerns about a noisy ventilation system which could threaten to disrupt clinical service, with the development board saying it was "very hard to determine" if this would cause delays to a handover.
After the completion of construction by main contractor BAM, the hospital will also require an estimated seven-month commissioning period before it is ready for use.
But Children's Health Ireland (CHI) has raised concerns about transporting patients in the higher-risk winter period.
'Looking at all options'
CHI chief executive Lucy Nugent said: "As the prolongation of the substantial complete date and then the opening date pushes into, potentially, into a winter period, so we are looking at all options for opening this hospital as soon as possible.
"So for example, we will be looking at how the flu season in the southern hemisphere is, 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 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."
She said: "We continue to evaluate the situation, and when it comes to the actual day-one opening date, we will risk assess is it safe to do so."
The latest update shows that BAM has provided partial early access to certain areas of the new hospital.
Works have been completed on the lower ground level, level 0 and level 6.
Mr Gunning told the committee that these levels have been clinically cleaned, and the delivery, installation and commissioning of over 5,500 pieces of medical and non-equipment and ICT equipment has been completed.
All specialist inbuilt equipment such as MRIs, CTS and X-ray machines are also now installed.
To date, over 2,850 of the 5,728 rooms have been validated as meeting the contract standard, he will say.
Mr Gunning said that the Board is exercising all its rights and remedies available under contract to compel BAM to achieve substantial completion.
He said on multiple occasions, the Board has withheld 15% of payment due to BAM, when its programme was deemed non-compliant.
The total cost incurred by the NPHDB by the end of February was €1.6 billion, including VAT.
By the end of February, 3,505 claims had been notified by BAM Ireland, most of which amount to a total of €899 million.
After assessment, €53 million has been paid to date.
The NPHDB said that claims are the subject of conciliation, adjudication and a number of High Court proceedings.
In 2013, the NPHDB was appointed by the Minister for Health to design, build and equip the new hospital on the St James's Hospital campus.
BAM started above-ground works in January 2019.
The final cost and opening date of the new hospital is not known at this point.
Dr Brian Turner, Health Economist at Cork University Business School, said "there is an element of groundhog day" about the revelation that the 18th completion deadline for the new National Children Hospital's will be missed.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, he said the latest delay was "well-flagged" and today's announcement was "confirmation of what we already suspected".
Depite the anticipation of another new completion date in around 15 days time, Professor Turner questioned whether "anybody really has 100% confidence in any date at this point in time".
Additional reporting PA
