BAM accused of 'disregard for sick children'

The chief officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board has accused contractor BAM of showing "complete disregard for sick children and young people and their families" over delays in building the National Children's Hospital.

In a statement submitted to the Oireachtas Committee on Health seen by RTÉ News, David Gunning identifies three failures by BAM which he asserts are "the biggest factors contributing to the continued delay to completion".

The board will appear before the committee on Wednesday.

Mr Gunning said BAM’s "continued insistence on offering rooms and areas within the hospital as complete when they are still incomplete", continued failure to manage the "project execution" and "continued unwillingness to resource the project appropriately" are delaying completion.

"In the last 12 months alone, BAM has shifted the substantial completion date four times, pushing out the completion date by a total of eight months...In the absence of a written, contractually compliant, realistic and resource-loaded programme the NPHDB (National Paediatric Hospital Development Board) cannot and will not simply accept BAM’s ongoing deferral dates," he added.

As mentioned by the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly last Friday in his letter to the Taoiseach over delays at the hospital, Mr Gunning said: "As of today, not one room has been fully completed in line with the standard and finish as set out in the contract."

"BAM continues to submit large volumes of claims, including duplication and triplication of claimed time and value. It is the view of the NPHDB that BAM is seeking to implement a strategy to exert pressure on the State to secure additional monies above the contract sum, by whatever means," he said.

With regards to Mr Gunning's criticisms, BAM said the project has always been resourced fully and is currently resourced at approximately 50% above the level that was anticipated for this late stage.

It said it is fully confident in the quality of the construction work for the hospital adding that 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".

It added that the build phase is now more than 93% completed based on the original scope, notwithstanding additional work generated by the "significant number of design changes" instructed by the client.

"BAM has complied at all stages with all requirements and provisions set out in the contract and has not been sanctioned by the NPHDB," the company said.

Taoiseach Simon Harris has said there are penalty clauses in the contract and they should be applied in full.

He said the National Paediatric Hospital development board has "every resources it requires and will have anymore it requires to continue to push back against any nonsensical claims and messing around."

He said the job at hand now is for everybody to put their shoulder to the wheel to get the doors open.

He added that he would like EU procurement rules to allow past performance to be taken into account in the awarding of contracts in the future.

Last Friday, BAM issued a statement in which it said it rejects in the "strongest terms" allegations made against it over the construction of the National Children's Hospital.

Under construction since 2017, the cost of the new hospital in Dublin has risen to more than €2.2 billion.

Spokesperson on Health for the Social Democrats and member of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, Róisín Shortall said in the past the board's appearances have been "quite unsatisfactory".

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Shortall said: "It's been very difficult to get any definitive information from the development board and this project is now ongoing for seven years and it looks like there may be another two years at least before the hospital actually opens.

"And in relation to cost, of course, we're still no clearer in relation to what the ultimate cost is going to be.

"The latest estimate is about €2.24bn, but we were told by the chair of the development board that there's no certainty that that will stay at that level, so it's likely to go up even further."

She said the committee needs to be updated on a number of issues in relation to "all of those faults and flaws with the building that we've been reading about".

Ms Shortall said that the Minister for Health has made "serious allegations" against construction company BAM that need to be addressed.

In the letter sent by Mr Donnelly to the Taoiseach, Mr Donnelly said it is the view of the board 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.

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

Ms Shortall said there have been three ministers who have overseen this project so far and they have failed to control the costs.

"There has been a failure on the part of three successive ministers for health to actually grab control of this project. It has run away, and those three ministers certainly have questions to answer," said Ms Shortall.

The Minister for Children has said he understands the frustrations of taxpayers and parents over the cost and delays of building the hospital.

Roderic O'Gorman also said there was also "huge frustration" across the Government over the "approach the developer" has taken to the construction.

He said there did not seem to be a sufficient level of resources being undertaken by the developers and said the hospital needs to be completed as soon as possible.

Mr O'Gorman also said there is no legal mechanism to prevent BAM from getting other state contracts while the hospital remains uncompleted.

"It’s very hard to defend when a contract has taken so long, when there are significant questions about the approach taken to that contract, that same contractor getting other valuable state contracts," he said.

He said he supported the steps Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is proposing in this regard.

Donnelly is 'asleep at the wheel' - Sinn Féin

Stephen Donnelly is "asleep at the wheel" as the "scandal of endless cost overruns" continues at the National Children's Hospital, according to the Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane.

Speaking in Dublin, he said nobody could have any confidence that current estimated bill of €2.2bn will not be exceeded and no one can say with any accuracy when the facility will open.

The Waterford TD said both Taoiseach Simon Harris and Mr Donnelly were constantly acting as commenters rather than taking responsibility for their own failings.

Mr Cullinane described as "laughable" an assertion from the Taoiseach that the Government is not a soft touch when it comes to paying-out for cost overruns.

He said if he was Minister for Health, he would be holding weekly meetings with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board to get the facility completed.

Instead, he asserted, 17 completion dates have come and gone and the losers are the taxpayers and children.

Additional reporting Joe Mag Raollaigh, Conor Hunt