THE new National Children's Hospital is set to be delayed AGAIN - and there are fears no child will be treated at it until 2026. The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board will tell the Public Accounts Committee tomorrow that the NCH will miss its substantial completion date of October 29. RTE report that the latest monthly report from contractors BAM indicates another delay to the construction of the site.
Despite over €2.2 billion being allocated for the project after an initial €800m estimate, the board will tell the PAC that ongoing delays are sending costs spiralling even further. The board is set to say that all possible contractual levers are being pulled to complete the hospital.
However once completed, the hospital will have to be commissioned - essentially, undergo quality assurance - which will take a further several months. This could mean no child will be treated at the flagship centre until 2026. The October date was a pushback from a previous "substantial completion" date, originally set for this month.
The original completion date in the tender document was August 2022. The overall cost of the project has risen from an estimated €800 million in 2014, to €983 million in 2017, to €1.4 billion in December 2019, to €2.
24 billion in February 2023 - and looks set to spiral further. The hospital, on the St James’s Hospital site in Dublin, is the largest current infrastructure development in the state. By last July, only 27 rooms out of 3,000 - u.
