An updated programme of building works for the new national children’s hospital has been agreed for the first time in almost four years, paving the way for the project to be completed this summer.
Building on the site at St James’s Hospital in Dublin began in 2016 after years of disagreement over the location of the hospital.
The following eight years saw the cost balloon from €987 million to €2.2 billion, with repeated delays exacerbated by an increasingly fractious relationship between the builders, BAM, and the board overseeing the project – the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB)
Last summer, The Irish Times reported that the NPHDB was preparing to sanction BAM after the board said a compliant programme of works was still not in place for the build.
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The board said last July that it would submit a claim which would allow it to withhold 15 per cent of certified payments until such a compliant programme of works was received.
Two months later, a confidential report was circulated among senior officials at the Department of Health which detailed deepening concerns. The report, released to The Irish Times in late December under Freedom of Information legislation, outlined further concerns about the lack of a contractually compliant programme of works.
It warned that “without receipt of a contractually compliant programme, confidence in the contractor’s reported substantial completion date cannot be determined”.
It said the contractor “is citing works associated with reflective ceiling panels rather than due to a lack of on-site resources and rectifying their own defects for the recent timeline changes”.
Officials were told the hospital board was continuing to “engage with the contractor and to use all the levers at their disposal, including contractual mechanisms, to seek the earliest possible completion date for the hospital”.
The report also said the board had reported continued “construction quality” challenges.
“They are working to mitigate delays where possible and continue to advise that they will not accept a building that does not meet the required quality standards. .”
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Officials from the Department of Health’s National Oversight Group discussed the report. Then, in early December, a programme of building works complaint with the contract was agreed for the first time in nearly four years.
In a statement, the board said the “employer’s representative”, which adjudicates on disputes, “deemed BAM’s programme contract-compliant on December 2nd, 2024. This is the first time a programme provided by BAM has been deemed contract compliant since February 2021.
“BAM has committed to a substantial completion date of June 30th, 2025. The NPHDB is continuing to work with BAM to ensure that it progresses in line with its new programme, so that the new children’s hospital is completed in accordance with the contract specification, and by BAM’s stated substantial completion date.”
A spokesman for BAM also said a formally accepted programme was in place.
With both sides now working towards an agreed finish date in June, focus will shift to the handover, commissioning and staffing of the project. Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) has said there will be a minimum six-month commissioning phase, meaning it will likely be this time next year before the hospital’s doors open, some six years beyond the initially promised opening date of 2020.
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