Minutes show officials knew of Children's Hospital overrun since September 2018

Issued : Thursday 7 February, 2019

Labour Party Health spokesperson, Alan Kelly TD, has said that Ministers Harris and Donohoe’s accounts of who knew what and when on the National Children’s Hospital don’t stack up following the publication of minutes which show the officials in the Department of Health knew of a €400 million overrun since September 2018.

Deputy Kelly said:

“I received minutes of the Children’s Hospital Project and Programme Board and having analysed them it is clear that officials in the Department of Health knew about the scale of this overspend since September 2018.

“The Minister for Health has repeated over and over again that his Department wasn’t made aware of the full cost of the overrun until November 2018, we now know that this is not the case. 

“If officials in the Department of Health knew since September 2018 and a high-ranking official in the Department of Public Expenditure sat on the National Paediatric Hospital Development board, how can it be that no ministers were informed until November 9th 2018? This does not stack up! 

“Where has the political leadership from Harris and Donohoe been? How can there have been a complete lack of oversight from these two line ministers overseeing one of the largest capital projects being carried out by the State?