Board of Children's Hospital 'very satisfied' with its own work

The board had expressed grave concerns regarding the potential impact of disputes with the main hospital contractor BAM on both the project itself and its completion date, which is not currently forecast to occur before late 2024 at the earliest. File photo

The board of the €1.7bn National Children’s Hospital declared itself “very satisfied” with its own performance following a self-evaluation review at the end of 2020.

The self-evaluation report was compiled in December of that year, in line with the code of practice for the governance of State bodies, and at a time when there were eight people on the National Paediatric Health Development Board (NPHDB).

The board members “expressed a high level of satisfaction with the board’s performance and processes” at its monthly meeting on January 13, 2021.

The minutes of the meeting note that 45% of the questions the board asked itself received a “very satisfied” response, with a further 40% receiving a response of “satisfied”.

The same notes detail that a dissatisfied response was provided to four of the questions posed, with the board then discussing those answers. The nature of either those questions or the related discussions are not outlined in the minutes.

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At the same meeting, the board discussed means by which its members could ensure they had the “appropriate skills and knowledge” necessary to “discharge their respective duties and responsibilities effectively”, with the upshot of that discussion being that potentially useful courses delivered by the Institute of Public Administration would be made known to all board members should they have wished to attend.

The NPHDB has primary administrative responsibility for the delivery of the new hospital, the timelines and budget of which have gone a great deal beyond what was originally envisaged.

In February 2021, the board told the Public Accounts Committee that a report compiled by the Department of Health regarding updated timelines and budgets for the project would be delivered in between two to four weeks. However, this report was never delivered, with the department subsequently declaring the information to be “commercially sensitive”.

Earlier this week the Irish Examiner revealed that the board had expressed grave concerns regarding the potential impact of disputes with the main hospital contractor BAM on both the project itself and its completion date, which is not currently forecast to occur before late 2024 at the earliest.

As of last February, BAM had filed 700 additional legal claims worth €300m against the board in terms of the project, all of which had been defended. A moratorium on such claims has been in place since last summer.

At the January board meeting, one member of the board queried whether it was receiving a discount from legal firm McCann Fitzgerald in terms of dispute and litigation costs being incurred “given the volume of work”, with another suggesting that “additional narrative” was needed to show “that the best value for money was being obtained”.

The Irish Examiner queried the NPHDB regarding an updated figure for legal costs for the duration of the project but had not received a response at the time of publication.