We will not take that step again, minister says of children’s hospital contract

The health minister has said a similar contract underpinning the long-delayed construction of the National Children’s Hospital would not be used again.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said that she hoped that the hospital could accept patients from December this year if the hospital construction was completed by April.

She made the comments to the Oireachtas health committee on Wednesday.

The deadline for the completion of the major infrastructure project has been pushed back over a dozen times and costs have ballooned from a planned 650 million euros to an expected 2.2 billion euros.

After the completion of construction by main contractor BAM, the hospital will also require a commission period of between six and nine months, to install healthcare machines, for example, before it becomes operational.

Asked by committee chairman Padraig Rice whether she was confident the April 30 deadline would be met by the main contractor BAM, Ms Carroll MacNeill said “that’s up to BAM”.

“If the hospital is handed over at the end of April, and if everything goes well with the commissioning period, and we really have worked hard to try to make that as tight as possible, then that that would be my expectation (that patients would be in the hospital by December).”

“What are you doing to ensure the BAM meets its obligation to deliver that hospital?” Mr Rice asked.

Ms Carroll MacNeill said: “What do you believe is within my power to do, chair, what are the procedural tools that are available to me?”

“I have challenged BAM, as has my predecessor, both privately, in the media, in public, by way of letter, by way of update to you, to provide clear, clear evidence as to what needs to happen for them to finish it.”

Asked by Mr Rice if this meant the hospital contract was flawed, the minister said: “I would not sign… I would not…

“With the current projects that we are moving forward, we would not have a similar contractual structure, and I think we will see that in respect of the National Maternity Hospital and other major projects that we will be advancing.”

Asked if the contract was “fundamentally flawed”, she said: “We would not take that step again.

“The contractual structure is not one we would approach again, is not one we would adopt again.”

Earlier, Ms Carroll MacNeill told the committee that the Department of Health was trying to do more with the 27.35 billion euro in funding it had received for healthcare spending.

She said Ireland was experience a growth in demand for health services and said there was a variable performance between regions on how it responded to a spike in trolley numbers.

She said there were 15 injury units in the country and four more would be opened this year.

“We’ve had a very tight financial performance in 2025 that is different to what we’ve experienced before,” she said.

“We are driving hard.

“We do have an increase in budget, but we are really driving hard to do more with what we already have, with what the state has already invested.”