Fitting-out of children's hospital to begin next month but end date for construction not agreed, Dáil committee hears

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill told the Oireachtas Health Committee talks with construction firm Bam continue on Friday and she expects this to centre on the final handover.

The "fitting out" of the long-awaited new children’s hospital will begin next month, but a final end date for construction is not yet agreed.

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill told the Oireachtas Health Committee talks with construction firm Bam continue on Friday and she expects this to centre on the final handover.

“I am informed we will have early access on December 3,” she said, meaning Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) can “get in there” to start fitting out the site.

Friday’s meeting will involve Bam international representatives, she told Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane.

However, the minister told Fine Gael TD Colm Burke it was not yet clear how long the fitting-out process could take. There were no updates on costs, which are currently estimated at more than €2.2bn.

The committee hearing focused on the health budget. The minister was seeking additional funding of €300m for current expenditure in 2025.

Most of this at €250m covers non-pay overrun across hospitals, community services, and the Primary Care Reimbursement Service, which includes the medical card system.

Labour health spokeswoman Marie Sherlock described this as a failure of forecasting. She said the overrun would be even higher if not for the far lower than expected uptake of new GP visit cards.

She and others queried a €15m underspend on staff, noting this was in parallel with a spiralling of agency spending despite pledges to cut it.

Examples were given by committee chair and Social Democrats TD Padraig Rice of nurses on HSE recruitment panels for a year, despite more than 1,000 vacancies.

The minister said: “The underspend is essentially for not recruiting for primary care.” 

She predicted this would change in 2026, now the HSE had moved to a regional structure, which should increase hiring locally. 

However, Ms Carroll MacNeill could not provide overall figures for new spending, saying only details would be shared in the HSE service plan. This is not yet published.

Some €40m of the overrun was going to voluntary hospitals such as the Mercy Hospital in Cork and the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin.

“This comes with a requirement for much tighter governance and controls,” Ms Carroll MacNeill said.

This will include stricter recruitment controls and seven-day rostering of staff. These hospitals will use national IT systems for finance and procurement, and payroll.

Minister of state for mental health Mary Butler said recruitment for children’s mental health services in Kerry remained challenging.

She told Kerry TD Michael Cahill the 2023 look-back review on the North Kerry service was almost done.

“I expect to have it in the next two weeks, by month’s end, and I will act very swiftly on that then,” she said.