National Children’s Hospital cost to increase by another half billion

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has told Cabinet that the cost of the long-delayed National Children’s Hospital has risen by another half a billion Euro.

The site has been plagued with runaway costs, never-ending delays and criticism for its rather oblique location relative to the rest of Dublin since it was first proposed all the way back in 1993.

Planning permission was granted in 2016 for the St James’ site, but a number of excuses such as the Covid-19 pandemic, a rise in the price of construction materials following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukrainian war and general mismanagement have resulted in the project costing nearly €2 billion.

The original estimated cost was €450m in 2017.

RTÉ has reported that the site is due to be completed by October, with the hospital officially opening in April 2025.

Dr Paul Davis, lecturer at DCU, told RTÉ last August that it would be “politically expedient” for Government to hold back on formally announcing a date due to speculation surrounding an upcoming election.

“There’s still a further probably 18 months before we actually see the first child admitted at this stage. Had it been within a couple of months, then we probably would have expected the board to have approved it (a completion date). But given that it probably is not within a couple of months of May in 2024, nobody really wants to announce the date, I suspect, because there’s an election due next year.”

Davis dismissed claims from Government that the war in Ukraine and the pandemic contributed to the site being massively delayed, noting that in 2019 there were concerns raised by the firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

“The design was already coming under question in 2019, with PriceWaterhouseCoopers talking about the project management of the hospital board and the lack of project management skills and the lack of project management ability.”