A tit-for-tat row over who is to blame for delays to the National Children’s Hospital has erupted between the government and the building contractor, writes Sarah McGuinness.

Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill cast doubt yesterday on the completion date for the €2bn hospital. She also accused building giant BAM of issuing several "not credible" claims as to why the project remains incomplete.

A Department of Health source indicated that it is unlikely the hospital will be complete by the end of next month in light of these concerns.

However, BAM insisted that any delays to the project are down to design changes and that the project is 99% complete.

The hospital has been a growing political scourge for successive governments. A completion date of August 2022 was first touted.

However, this has been pushed back 15 times, while the project’s budget ballooned from an estimated €650m in 2014 to €2.2bn today. The hospital will also require a commission period of between six and nine months upon completion before it is ready for use.

Asked about progress at the site yesterday afternoon, Carroll MacNeill said: "The single biggest concern I have at the moment with BAM is with the fact that there are half the number of contractors on site than there had been at the end of last year… There were 800 to 900 contractors routinely on site every week at the end of 2024.

"There’s now 400 to 500 and that the work is not being done in a logical and sequential way."

The Health Minister also said that, based on the most recent information she had, BAM was not drawing down the full amount available to it to carry out work and bring in sub-contractors.

"We have provisioned to pay BAM €10m a month, from which they’ve been drawing down about €2.8m-€3m… I’d rather be paying the €10m, because then that would be the appropriate number of contractors on site," Carroll MacNeill said.

A spokeswoman for the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which oversees the hospital’s development, echoed these comments.

She added that BAM "remains behind on all of the programme key performance indicators tracked by the NPHDB".

BAM has rejected the minister’s comments. A spokesman for the contractor said that the hospital is "more than 99% complete" and that "it is entirely normal that there are fewer personnel on site compared to this time last year".

The firm also blames the delays on design changes from the Department. "In October last year, a commitment was made that no further design changes would occur. There have been 84 new and revised design changes since then," a spokesman said.

BAM also said that "large areas of the hospital have been completed since early July and offered to the NPHDB for early access".

However Ms Carroll MacNeill said last night that this claim, and numerous others, are "not credible".

"The NPHDB has stated that many of these offered rooms still have open snags," she said.

(Pic: RollingNews.ie)