Children’s hospital board ‘had no grasp of actual costs’

The team tasked with building what is set to become the world’s most expensive hospital put part of the project out to tender without any grasp of the actual amount of materials required.

Tom Costello, chair of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, said as much when he told the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee that by mid-2018, “it became clear that there was a very significant gap developing” between tender-stage estimated quantities for mechanical/electrical systems and actual quantities.