Sir, – The three most recent ministers for health (Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and Stephen Donnelly) have been quite correct in their assertions since 2014 that the €2.7 billion national children’s hospital would be both “world class” and a “world-beater”.
It now ranks as the world’s most costly healthcare facility. The final bill, after fit-out, will be close to €3 billion compared with the €1.52 billion cost of Sweden’s Nya Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm which opened in 2018.
Despite their best efforts, the Australian authorities could only spend a paltry €1.44 billion building the Royal Adelaide Hospital, completed in 2017. The Queensland Children’s Hospital was finished in 2014 at a cost of €1.43 billion. Perth’s new 300-bed Western Australia Children’s Hospital, which now employs dozens of Irish-trained doctors, nurses and therapists, was completed in 2018 at a spend of €740 million, about the original estimate for Dublin’s 380-bed counterpart.
Let’s look forward to the “world-class” Dublin Metro and Shannon water supply pipeline to ensure we remain real “world-beaters” when it comes to overpriced public projects. Unexpectedly we have secured the gold medal for bike shed construction, reaching an impressive €19,778 for each bike stand. That certainly is a “world-beater” unlikely to be surpassed by more parsimonious states for at least the next 10 years, “short of an asteroid hitting the planet”, to use a phrase used by Leo Varadkar in 2016 to reassure us that the children’s hospital would be finished by 2020. – Yours, etc,
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GERALD FLYNN,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Much has been written about the cost of the now infamous Leinster House bicycle shed as well as the cost over-run of the children’s hospital.
However, there is another cost. And that cost is being paid by disadvantaged children, parents and individuals who cannot now access the services they so desperately need, because the money needed to fund their service has been flittered away by nameless well-paid public servants.
They will no doubt do as they have done in the past, hide behind the now familiar phrase, “It was a systems failure.”
They might use the other phrase beloved by all in authority: “We will learn from this and see it doesn’t happen again.”
I wonder if they had to wait six months for their salary to be paid, would they be happy to accept either of those reasons?
So why should those who are waiting for that critical assistance? – Yours, etc,
VIVIAN GOOD,
Kilkenny.
Sir, – The pyramids, as I understand, ran way over budget, and caused considerable concern to the pharaoh of the time. And the Parthenon left a hugely excessive hole in the Athenian budget. Closer to home in time and space, my recollection is that both the M50 and the Dart attracted much adverse comment at the time as being quite unnecessary and likely to bankrupt the nation. So I venture to look forward to a time later in the century when, amid universal admiration for the impressive architecture and superb facilities of the national children’s hospital, its monstrous cost and delayed completion will be only dimly remembered. – Yours, etc,
JOHN DILLON
Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus),
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – The OPW – Opulent Public Waste. – Yours, etc,
BERNARD BROWNE,
Old Ross,
Co Wexford.
Sir, – Further to “Leinster House plans to spend €190,000 on fitness instructor for politicians and staff over four years” (News, September 25th), why do TDs, Senators and staff in Leinster House now need a fitness instructor?
Won’t they all be as fit as circus fleas from cycling to and from their new bike shed? – Yours, etc,
JIM LONG,
Bandon,
Co Cork.