Hospital builder rejects it is 'holding State to ransom'

Building company BAM has said it rejects in the "strongest terms" allegations made against it over the construction of the National Children's Hospital.

The firm issued a statement in response to a letter seen by RTÉ News which was sent by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly to Taoiseach Simon Harris and other senior Government figures on Friday.

In the letter, Mr Donnelly said it is the view of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which is responsible for the hospital project, that "BAM's approach is based on extracting as much money from the Irish taxpayer as possible".

He said this is "partly responsible for the under-resourcing of the project and the ongoing delays" with the completion of the hospital.

Minister Donnelly said it is the view of the board that BAM is "resourcing the project at less than half of what is required".

BAM, which is building the new hospital in Dublin, has described the allegations as "misleading, ill-informed and incorrect".

It said it particularly rejected Mr Donnelly's claim that BAM is trying to "extract as much money from the Irish taxpayer as possible" and "is holding the State to ransom".

The claims "have absolutely no basis in fact, nor are they helpful to ensuring this complex and vital project is completed at the earliest possible juncture", BAM said.

The company said the building of the hospital has led to a "highly complex construction dispute on which there is little agreement on the main drivers of delay".

However they added that in May an independent conciliator cited the level of design changes by the NPHDB as "by far the biggest factor in the increased costs and delays to the project."

BAM added that decisions by independent conciliators have "extended the official completion date of the project by 16 months".

Mr Donnelly said that a decision by the conciliator to award a sum in excess of €100m to BAM in May is being challenged by the NPHDB.

Snag list

In his letter, Minister Donnelly said that of the 3,000 rooms offered as complete by BAM, "none were completed to the expected, acceptable standard".

He said that the issues arising with the rooms include "incomplete fittings and fixtures such as sinks, taps and showers, incomplete insulation work, grabrails not yet installed, and incomplete vinyl flooring".

"No one would accept these standards in their homes and the NPHDB certainly cannot, and will not, accept inferior standard of completion on the largest health investment in the history of the State," Mr Donnelly said.

In response to this, BAM has said it is "fully confident in the quality of the construction work for this world class hospital".

"The handover of rooms and de-snagging of minor issues is a routine element of the project which has clearly been affected by the level of client-instructed change.

"This is a process, not a one-off event, and rooms are never presented as final until the completed building is handed over to the customer," the company said.

'Calamity of errors' - Sinn Féin

The entire National Children's Hospital project has been described as a "calamity of errors" by Sinn Féin's Spokesperson on Health David Cullinane.

The Waterford TD said "it is the children of this State and their families who pay the price for a hospital that is now at least €1.5bn over budget".

"The reality is that the dysfunction at the heart of this project has its origins in the original contract and is a product of failure on the part of former ministers for health Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and now Stephen Donnelly," he said.

Mr Cullinane said that people have "no idea" how much the final cost for the hospital will be, or when it will begin to treat patients.

He said that while BAM has a responsibility to "deploy adequate resources to the project and complete the hospital as quickly as possible... the ultimate responsibility rests with the Government, and in particular Taoiseach Simon Harris and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly."