Further delay to completion date of National Children's Hospital 

The National Children's Hospital. The Public Accounts Committee will hear that as of the end of April 2024, some €1.43bn has been spent on the build.

The National Children’s Hospital is set for yet another delay, as it emerged the enormous project will not now be substantially completed by the end of October as previously estimated.

National Paediatric Health Development Board (NPHDB) chief officer David Gunning, is set to tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday that the latest monthly progress report from the hospital’s main contractor BAM “has indicated a further delay to the substantial completion date”.

Last September, BAM estimated that substantial completion would be achieved by October 29, 2024.

After works are completed, the giant 380-bed project in south Dublin will be handed over to the State for 6 months’ worth of commissioning, before it finally opens to the public.

In his statement to the PAC, Mr Gunning is expected to say that the “primary driver” for cost increases on the hospital has been “the ongoing delay to the completion of the project”.

“All possible contractual levers are being applied to secure certainty and the NPHDB continues to engage with BAM to explore mechanisms to deliver programme certainty and the earliest possible substantial completion,” he will say.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

The latest delay means the hospital is unlikely to open before the summer of 2025 at the earliest.

The NPHDB’s relationship with BAM has been a strained one almost since the very beginning of a project which has seen significant cost and timeline overruns over the past eight years.

Mr Gunning will tell the PAC that, to date, BAM has submitted just under 2,800 claims to the NPHDB calling for cost reappraisals due to the evolving nature of the project, claims valued at approximately €785m, though additional costs of just €22.8m, excluding inflation, have been determined to date.

He will state that as of the end of April 2024 some €1.43bn has been spent on the hospital build.

Last February, the Government officially approved a final capital budget for the hospital of €1.88bn, a figure which Mr Dunning will say stands as “an appropriate level” for what the project will eventually cost.

He will note that “despite challenges” construction on the hospital has “advanced significantly” over the past eight months, with the entire external facade of the building now completed and all tower cranes now removed from the site.