Statement: WEDNESDAY 27 AUGUST 2025
STATEMENT FROM MINISTER FOR HEALTH JENNIFER CARROLL MACNEILL TD ON THE NATIONAL CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL IRELAND (NCHI) CAPITAL PROJECT
I was updated across the summer and most recently on Tuesday 26 August, on progress on the National Children’s Hospital Ireland (NCHI) capital project, based on information provided by the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB).
It is not credible for BAM to suggest that “large areas of the hospital have been completed since early July and offered to the NPHDB for early access”.
The NPHDB has stated that many of these offered rooms still have open snags and that in reality only c.800 of these rooms are satisfactory i.e. less than 15% of the overall number of rooms.
Critically, many of those rooms were ‘chequerboarded’ throughout floors and areas of the hospital rather than being offered in a zoned, consistent or logical manner. What is needed is whole zones or blocks of rooms, from the ground floor up to the sixth floor in order to gain and benefit from meaningful additional early access for Children’s Health Ireland.
BAM’s suggestion that ongoing design changes are impacting the completion of the hospital is not credible, especially given the fact that BAM is claiming that the project is 99% complete. It is BAM’s responsibility to get its final 1% done.
What is needed now is for BAM to provide the resources necessary to complete the over 5,800 rooms in this building to the standard set out in the contract and to hand them over to the NPHDB in a logical, methodical and timely manner, first facilitating additional early access as it committed to, and then the timely substantial completion of the entire building.