The Government is heading for the same “car crash” costs in the construction of the national maternity hospital that apply to the national children’s hospital, the Dáil has been told. Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín made the claim as he highlighted the development of the maternity hospital, to be located at St Vincent’s hospital in south Dublin.
Mr Tóibín said he had the bill of quantities – the tender document detailing materials, parts and labour costs – for the maternity hospital. “It appears that the Government is again rushing to tender before the job is properly designed. It also appears that the bill of quantities for the national maternity hospital is as half-baked as the contract for the national children’s hospital.”
Mr Tóibín said he understood there were only two companies tendering for the “mechanical elements” of the maternity facility. “It appears that the Government is heading for the same procurement car crash for the national maternity hospital that exists for the national children’s hospital.”
He called for a review of the tender process for the national maternity hospital, “given the fiasco over the national children’s hospital”. He said “the Government is incinerating taxpayers’ money”.
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However Tánaiste Micheál Martin said the delay with the maternity hospital was “more on the political side in terms of getting that project off the ground”.
“When you delay, you increase costs,” and “we had delay, in my view, for far, far too long”.
He said a report by PwC “goes into considerable detail on errors and mistakes that were made” in the national children’s hospital. But “it is ridiculous to suggest that politicians now have to oversee every bill of quantity in respect of every hospital that is going to be built”.
Meanwhile, in the Seanad Independent Senator Victor Boyhan criticised members of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission for scapegoating the OPW over the costs of the bike shed and said they should have known. The construction “has been under our nose” for the past nine months. “We knew what was going on.”
Mr Boyhan said “it is easy to romp in here after the summer and blame the OPW and everybody else. Let us as politicians take responsibility for things that are going on within our campus.”
Deputy Seanad leader Seán Kyne told Mr Boyhan “we all saw the bike shed being built, yet no one, including him, queried its cost. No one imagined what the costs would be, and everybody assumed they would be reasonable.”
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