Children’s hospital has to go ahead, says Harris

The failure to build the national children’s hospital would be a scar on the Government’s legacy, Health Minister Simon Harris told an Oireachtas committee.

“Not to build this hospital would be a scar on our legacy as an Oireachtas and as a Government,” he told a meeting of the Health Committee.

“We’d be yet again neglecting kids who went through the last economic boom promised a hospital that was never built because we had parish pump politics of trying to fit it into people’s constituencies on a site that we could never get planning permission for.”

Mr Harris was before the committee to answer questions on cost overruns of the national project.

The bill for the hospital, being built at the St James’s Hospital site in Dublin is expected to be at least €1.4bn.

Mr Harris told TDs and senators that he learned in August that costs were not on track but it was November before he knew the exact figure.

The cost of the hospital is now €450m higher than the €930m approved by the Government two years ago.

Mr Harris said he could not stop the development of the hospital because it was so badly needed.

He had three options — to either pause, re-tender or proceed with the project.

“We couldn’t actually stop this project because it is so badly needed in terms of the infrastructure for our children.”

The secretary general of the Department of Health, Jim Breslin, agreed it was a mess and was totally unhappy with the situation.

“The situation we are in now is absolutely invidious but we are going to build a hospital that has been required in this country for 30 years.”