He was responding to concerns about the escalating cost of the new national children’s hospital which has led to intense political pressure on Minister for Health Simon Harris. Mr Donohoe said he would bring a memo next week on procurement and on allocations for the Government’s capital plan which has had to be amended to take account of cost overruns in the hospital project. ‘Reasonable’ costEarlier, Mr Harris told the Oireachtas health committee the €1.4 billion price tag for the hospital was a “reasonable” one. Mr Harris told the committee he remained unaware of the scale of emerging cost overruns on the hospital project for almost a year. Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty said the time lines presented by Mr Harris and contained in the steering group minutes did not match up.

Source: The Irish Times February 07, 2019 06:00 UTC