€1bn cost overrun for new Children's Hospital

Ronaldinho · 19-12-2018 4:08pm

klaaaz wrote: »

The new Children's hospital that was announced by FG a few years ago to cost €485m has now shot up to over €1.4bn, who knows how many more billion it will cost if and when it's finished. Expect a tribunal in a decade's time to find out who is really benefiting from the explosion in costs, it's all murky in the making of a financial scandal.

https://www.rte.ie/news/health/2018/1218/1017899-national-childrens-hospital/

You read that right, a world first in that Ireland has managed to produce the most expensive hospital in the world! Marvellous statement from one of the most expensively paid leaders in the world who lives off the taxpayer.

Now do you get why many of us are opposed to the higher taxes you espoused in other threads over the past few weeks?

The Bishop Basher · 19-12-2018 4:16pm

This was already the most expensive children’s hospital in the world before a sod was turned and it was obvious from the outset that it would run into massive over runs.

Building on the site of an existing hospital smack bang in the heart of the city was never going to remain in budget.

Never mind the complete idiocy of locating a new hospital there in the first place.

I don’t care what the experts say. They were wrong then and they’re still wrong now.

This will go down as the single biggest waste of taxpayers money in our lifetimes.

We are incapable of managing ourselves.

jmayo · 19-12-2018 4:20pm

klaaaz wrote: »

The new Children's hospital that was announced by FG a few years ago to cost €485m has now shot up to over €1.4bn, who knows how many more billion it will cost if and when it's finished. Expect a tribunal in a decade's time to find out who is really benefiting from the explosion in costs, it's all murky in the making of a financial scandal.

https://www.rte.ie/news/health/2018/1218/1017899-national-childrens-hospital/

You read that right, a world first in that Ireland has managed to produce the most expensive hospital in the world! Marvellous statement from one of the most expensively paid leaders in the world who lives off the taxpayer.

I don' know where you have been, but you are trying to use this as stick to beat FG, when you might as well use to beat every single political party and public organisation in Ireland.
It is the way things end up here.

See Port tunnel, Luas, M50, PPARS, every fecking public funded project in this country has had massive budget and time overruns.

And in this case what do you expect when they decided to plant it in a very constrained space, end up digging massive fecking hole that was just absorbing cash at a rate of knots.

Oh don't worry I am not defending this shyte.
Go back and look at every one of my posts about this hospital and you will find me arguing that it should never have been put at St James no more than at it's previous location the Mater.

But no, all the medical experts were claiming it had to be collocated and what about public transport.
Yeah all the sick kids and their parents would be taking public transport to the hospital.
Sure what am I saying, who gives a shyte about them, so they added two extra units to Tallaght and Connolly to cater for them.

buried wrote: »

Hmmm Anyone in some semblance of authority going to take some responsibility for this?

FFS responsibility aint in the Irish lexicon.

DS86DS wrote: »

The ignorance and stupidity of FG for placing this next to St. James A&E where half the junkies in Dublin pay a trip to.

It's a completely inappropriate location for a children's hospital.

Yeah one tiny step up from bertie's Mater site.
Obviously FG had connections with St James where Ff's were with the Mater.

Oh and before the shinners start trying to make hay with this check out how good old Aengus Snodaigh was glad as a local that the new hospital would "help local regeneration and create much-needed local jobs."

And then he got all excited about it being secular and naming it after a Mayo woman.
That is about the only positive in the whole fooking saga.

BTW does anyone know if the cost of the two new paediatric urgent care and out-patient satellite units on the Southside and Northside of the city at Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals which have also received planning permission are factored into this ????

So instead of building the whole lot at say Connolly they are doing a typical Irish fudge job of building stuff both there and Tallaght because they know damn well the St James location is nearly inaccessible.

klaaaz · 19-12-2018 4:50pm

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Now do you get why many of us are opposed to the higher taxes you espoused in other threads over the past few weeks?

Wrong approach. With no FFG in power, there will be stronger supervision of such projects in the public's best interest, value for money.

jmayo wrote: »

I don' know where you have been, but you are trying to use this as stick to beat FG, when you might as well use to beat every single political party and public organisation in Ireland.
It is the way things end up here.

See Port tunnel, Luas, M50, PPARS, every fecking public funded project in this country has had massive budget and time overruns.

All projects were overseen by FG and their predecessors in power FF. As FG are in power and you have a tendency to not blame them, this billion plus overspend by FG on a single project deserves a stick to be beaten with. Both parties were heavily involved in corruption in the rezoning of lands in pre-boom times, that has been heavily reported back then.

Guy:Incognito · 19-12-2018 4:51pm

Meh. Doesn't bother me. There's much worse things to waste public money on than a children's hospital.

ARNOLD J RIMMER · 19-12-2018 5:10pm

klaaaz wrote: »

Wrong approach. With no FFG in power, there will be stronger supervision of such projects in the public's best interest, value for money.

All projects were overseen by FG and their predecessors in power FF. As FG are in power and you have a tendency to not blame them, this billion plus overspend by FG on a single project deserves a stick to be beaten with. Both parties were heavily involved in corruption in the rezoning of lands in pre-boom times, that has been heavily reported back then.

So which party would bring the projects on or under budget?

EdgeCase · 19-12-2018 5:11pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Meh. Doesn't bother me. There's much worse things to waste public money on than a children's hospital.

That's not the point. It hasn't been spent on children's healthcare or the children's hospital. It has basically been thrown out the window.

By wasting this money it has been squandered out of a tight budget. It ultimately means LESS will been spent on actually providing children's healthcare. Instead it has been spent on what are referred to in industry as 'change orders' -This is where a ridiculous client changes their mind mid-project causing extensive redesigns.

It's the equivalent of deciding you've a 20 grand budget for a new kitchen, ordering it and then saying " hmm.. I think I want it with pink doors" after they've started building it. Then going oh no! "I hates pink, so I do!" "I want purple doors and also I want you to put it in a different house".

The designer scraps plans and starts again.

You then spend more time messing around changing things.

You then get a bill for 60 grand and go off on a rant about how it's sooooo unfair.

On a big project it's even worse as you're effectively going to have to pay for thousands of personnel hours and also retain various people who will effectively be doing nothing productive while the client runs around in circles unable to make any decisions and constantly changing its mind.

You absolutely never ever ever EVER do massive changes like this mid project unless there's some kind of natural disaster or something of that naurre in, certainly in any normal business. It's usually insanely expensive.

Of course we will probably never see a breakdown of what the finished project actually cost Vs what was flushed down the toilet on sheer chaos because that would be too politically embarrassing.

Venom · 19-12-2018 5:12pm

listermint wrote: »

The people that made this decision need to come out and own it and apologise. We all knew / know that the sites in Blanchardstown and Tallaght were more suitable on all points. But it seems an elite group within the decision making had a higher pull of the power strings.

Tbh mainly appears to be staffing related / consultants etc unwilling to be outside the M50 loop.

I know a fair few people working in St. James and they tell a completely different story. The hospital is losing staff hand over fist and finding it impossible to recruit more, due to lack of parking for the staff and how hard it is to get there on public transport. They were stunned when they learned the new hospital was going on that site.

kippy · 19-12-2018 5:13pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Meh. Doesn't bother me. There's much worse things to waste public money on than a children's hospital.

Indeed.
However if the hospital goes over budget by 500 million (or whatever it turns out to be, something has to lose out or indeed perhaps we could have built a second smaller facility somewhere else for kids with the overspend - or indeed hired more doctors/nurses.
It has a major knock on effect.
Granted a LOT of the issues with these types of things are that the initial cost estimates are completed years before the actual job gets done so they are completely out of whack, however in this case the figures are huge.

James Brown · 19-12-2018 5:16pm

klaaaz wrote: »

The new Children's hospital that was announced by FG a few years ago to cost €485m has now shot up to over €1.4bn, who knows how many more billion it will cost if and when it's finished. Expect a tribunal in a decade's time to find out who is really benefiting from the explosion in costs, it's all murky in the making of a financial scandal.

https://www.rte.ie/news/health/2018/1218/1017899-national-childrens-hospital/

You read that right, a world first in that Ireland has managed to produce the most expensive hospital in the world! Marvellous statement from one of the most expensively paid leaders in the world who lives off the taxpayer.

Fuppin' Margret Cash at it again!
Be interesting to see details. I'd say they'd no trouble finding construction workers....were as for social housing, there's a shortage of them :rolleyes:

AndrewJRenko · 19-12-2018 5:26pm

twinytwo wrote: »

One thing that is seemingly never introduced in government contracts is fixed pricing. If the build goes over budget there should be penalties in place.

There is no contract, fixed or otherwise. It's still at design stage. No tender has been issued.

ALL public sector build contracts are fixed price. That's why builders are going bust building schools.

Fr_Dougal · 19-12-2018 5:27pm

Rennaws wrote: »

This was already the most expensive children’s hospital in the world before a sod was turned and it was obvious from the outset that it would run into massive over runs.

Building on the site of an existing hospital smack bang in the heart of the city was never going to remain in budget.

Never mind the complete idiocy of locating a new hospital there in the first place.

I don’t care what the experts say. They were wrong then and they’re still wrong now.

This will go down as the single biggest waste of taxpayers money in our lifetimes.

We are incapable of managing ourselves.

eVotingNoelDempsey.jpg?width=300&s=bn-535367

AndrewJRenko · 19-12-2018 5:28pm

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

Well I for one am shocked........ The original costing was obviously ridiculous. I drive past that on a regular basis and the groundworks alone must have devoured 30 million. The way tenders work for public contracts is lowest price wins 99% of the time. So bam come in with a tender of 450 mill, knowing full well that it's going to cost 3 or 4 times that. But by the time that's discovered they are already committed to the job and no one is ever held accountable for the tender process. The system itself is not fit for purpose.

Except that's not what happens at all. If that was happening, do you really think we'd have builders going bust on school build contracts.

beauf · 19-12-2018 5:29pm

Lots of people on boards defended the whole saga, from the initial location, the new location, lack of parking, everything. Any criticism was shouted down as delaying the project.

Well you've got what you wanted.

Berserker · 19-12-2018 5:30pm

kippy wrote: »

However if the hospital goes over budget by 500 million (or whatever it turns out to be, something has to lose out or indeed perhaps we could have built a second smaller facility somewhere else for kids with the overspend - or indeed hired more doctors/nurses.

Those posts have been advertised and the finance is available to hire the staff above but they just cannot get the people. Ireland trains medical professionals to move abroad and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. If you could go and work in the USA for $500K a year or stay here and earn 40% of that, what would you do?

beauf · 19-12-2018 5:34pm

facehugger99 wrote: »

And we still have people claiming that the State should be directly involved in the building of social housing.

Well they stopped that a couple of decades ago.

Figures published by the Department of Housing show that some 448 units of housing were built by local authorities and housing associations in 2016, 28 fewer than the 476 built in 2015. The 2015 figure had been the lowest in over 40 years.

The highest annual output was in 1975, when local authorities built 8,794 units of housing.

Seems to be working out all right.

Currently, an affordable housing crisis across Europe can be traced to a 44 per cent drop in capital investment in social housing.

Worst housing crisis in the history of the State.

AndrewJRenko · 19-12-2018 5:35pm

jmayo wrote: »

See Port tunnel, Luas, M50, PPARS, every fecking public funded project in this country has had massive budget and time overruns.

You seem to have missed the hundreds, probably thousands of public build projects that come in quietly on budget and on schedule. The LUAS cross city was completed months ahead of schedule.

Thatnastyboy · 19-12-2018 5:35pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

There is no contract, fixed or otherwise. It's still at design stage. No tender has been issued.

For the hospital? Are you sure?

beauf · 19-12-2018 5:36pm

Wouldn't be so bad if they could tell you why a project was over budget.

James Brown · 19-12-2018 5:37pm

If Reilly was still health minister there would be two such hospitals and both in his neighbourhood

Berserker · 19-12-2018 5:38pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

There is no contract, fixed or otherwise. It's still at design stage. No tender has been issued.

The contract was awarded last year.

zl1whqvjs75cdy · 19-12-2018 5:42pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Except that's not what happens at all. If that was happening, do you really think we'd have builders going bust on school build contracts.

I presume you are referring to the Sammon group here? They went under as they were creditors or Carillion who collapsed early this year. Nothing to do with pricing of tenders.

AndrewJRenko · 19-12-2018 5:44pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

By wasting this money it has been squandered out of a tight budget. It ultimately means LESS will been spent on actually providing children's healthcare. Instead it has been spent on what are referred to in industry as 'change orders' -This is where a ridiculous client changes their mind mid-project causing extensive redesigns.

You absolutely never ever ever EVER do massive changes like this mid project unless there's some kind of natural disaster or something in normal business. It's usually insanely expensive.

Great advice. There's a fair chance that the advice is well known to the project team, given that they are making these changes BEFORE building, not mid project.

jmayo · 19-12-2018 5:44pm

klaaaz wrote: »

Wrong approach. With no FFG in power, there will be stronger supervision of such projects in the public's best interest, value for money.

All projects were overseen by FG and their predecessors in power FF. As FG are in power and you have a tendency to not blame them, this billion plus overspend by FG on a single project deserves a stick to be beaten with. Both parties were heavily involved in corruption in the rezoning of lands in pre-boom times, that has been heavily reported back then.

Ehh I do blame FG for siting the hospital where it is, or did you not read my post.
And that is one of the big reasons for huge cost.
And I blame them for huge wastages like the Irish Water setup.
BTW I do agree with paying for water, but not offering bonuses to staff just for setting the bleedin company up.:mad:

And unlike you I don't think some party of the left are going to be better.
In fact i think they will be worse when they factor in half the looney policies.

And leftie politicians tend to be damn good at getting their heads in the trough given the chance.
Do you remember how a certain politican I think I named earlier was spending absolute thousands on printing, SNAP printing type of money.

Or maybe you never noticed how a certain party's presidential candidate thought that "taking home the average industrial wage" actually meant the gross salary and not what most average industrial wage earners actually end up with after taxes and deductions ?

Berserker wrote: »

Those posts have been advertised and the finance is available to hire the staff above but they just cannot get the people. Ireland trains medical professionals to move abroad and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. If you could go and work in the USA for $500K a year or stay here and earn 40% of that, what would you do?

This is something that has me wondering for a while.
How come other EU countries hang onto their staff when they don't pay them sometimes even as much as ours?
How come there is anyone left in the NHS at this stage ?

seamus · 19-12-2018 5:52pm

jmayo wrote: »

This is something that has me wondering for a while.
How come other EU countries hang onto their staff when they don't pay them sometimes even as much as ours?
How come there is anyone left in the NHS at this stage ?

Conditions are better.
The only thing keeping most Irish health staff at home is the fact that they're in Ireland. There is basically nothing else for them.

In other countries, there's much better job satisfaction; even if the pay isn't great, the service is reasonably well-run, the staff are treated with respect, and they get to work in their home country.
For probably 90% of people, they don't need to be paid massive wages provided that they love their job. So they stay.

We don't. Our service is poorly run, staff are not respected, they're overworked and underappreciated. So unless you are dead set against leaving the country, you go to private health services, or you emigrate.

klaaaz · 19-12-2018 6:03pm

jmayo wrote: »

Ehh I do blame FG for siting the hospital where it is, or did you not read my post.
And that is one of the big reasons for huge cost.
And I blame them for huge wastages like the Irish Water setup.
BTW I do agree with paying for water, but not offering bonuses to staff just for setting the bleedin company up.:mad:

And unlike you I don't think some party of the left are going to be better.
In fact i think they will be worse when they factor in half the looney policies.

And leftie politicians tend to be damn good at getting their heads in the trough given the chance.
Do you remember how a certain politican I think I named earlier was spending absolute thousands on printing, SNAP printing type of money.

Or maybe you never noticed how a certain party's presidential candidate thought that "taking home the average industrial wage" actually meant the gross salary and not what most average industrial wage earners actually end up with after taxes and deductions ?

Out of all this drivel, you attack the left who are not even in power and have never been in nearly 100 years! Nice deflection on your part.
Its the right wing conservative party FG backed up by the largest opposition party FF who have overseen this billion plus euro hospital overrun. Oh and the right wing FG were behind another wasteful billion plus euro spend on Irish Water. And yet you'll still vote for FFG at the next election, you get what you deserve!

Berserker · 19-12-2018 6:03pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

This is something that has me wondering for a while. How come other EU countries hang onto their staff when they don't pay them sometimes even as much as ours? How come there is anyone left in the NHS at this stage ?

Because working in those countries and within their health system is a hell of a lot easier. In Ireland, you spend the majority of your time dealing with the results of overcrowding, apologizing for delays when you meet patients and dealing with ridiculous levels of red tape from the HSE. Caring for patients, the very reason why you get into medicine, comes after those things. We all know that the system doesn't work for patients but it doesn't work for the doctors either. My OH's friend went to Australia last year, the number one destination for Irish trained doctors, I believe and working in A&E over there is a completely different ball game. Overcrowding is rare, not the norm, staffing levels are high, collegiality is high and a healthy work life balance is promoted. My OH tried to get a few days off at the start of the month, so we could spend some quality time together, as opposed to the usual odd day or two. She was laughed at!

jmayo · 19-12-2018 6:04pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

You seem to have missed the hundreds, probably thousands of public build projects that come in quietly on budget and on schedule. The LUAS cross city was completed months ahead of schedule.

Oh wippee do.
The actual fact you even mentioned that project really draws attention to the fact the first Luas project, you know the one that came in something like twice the original budget and took nearly a decade.

In 1994 it was envisaged the three line (yes there was line to Ballymum included) would cost €330, but when the two lines were delivered in 2005 it had cost €778 million.

And the biggest crock of planning was that they weren't even linked which was done years later and you are lauding it as some great achievement. :rolleyes:

The National Development Plan (NDP) launched in Nov1999, proposed an investment of €5.6 billion on road improvements between 2000 and 2006.
At the end of 2003, it was estimated that this programme would cost not €5.6 billion but €16.4 billion.
That is an overrun of €10.8 billion.

So how many projects came in on time and budget and do the costs come in anywhere near say 1 billion?

Skyfloater · 19-12-2018 6:06pm

Just how do you manage to spend that amount of money on medium sized hospital, high spec or not. Google says that the tallest building in the world, the 163 storey, 830m high Burj Khalifa in UAE cost 1.3 billion euro.

Thatnastyboy · 19-12-2018 6:10pm

Skyfloater wrote: »

Just how do you manage to spend that amount of money on medium sized hospital, high spec or not. Google says that the tallest building in the world, the 163 storey, 830m high Burj Khalifa in UAE cost 1.3 billion euro.

Ask the slaves tradesmen that built it if they were paid CIF rates.

€1bn cost overrun for new Children's Hospital

Comments