Minister ‘disappointed’ at Children’s Hospital room completion rate

By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association

The Minister for Health has said she is “disappointed” with the pace of construction of the National Children’s Hospital, and will meet with the chief executive of the construction group BAM on Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin on Wednesday, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said: “I’ve been there a couple of times in the last few weeks, and on every occasion that I’ve been there, I have not seen the number of people working there that I believe I should be to meet the April 30 deadline.”

She said she is “not satisfied” with the number of rooms being completed, adding that over a four-week average about 167 are finished a week, saying: “It’s becoming cumulatively worse relative to where it should be in terms of room completions.”

Carroll MacNeill said she had written to the global headquarters of the main contractor on the project, BAM, and said its chief executive and two senior executives will meet with her at the hospital on Friday.

During recent visits to the hospital, she said she was “disappointed” she did not see “hundreds and hundreds of people working there”, and “if there were I didn’t see them”.

She said she hoped the BAM executives would be able to explain to her “where the people are”, and “how they’re going to meet the deadline, that is their deadline, which is one that they’ve missed several times.”

BAM has been contacted for comment.