The development of the new National Maternity Hospital must not be hindered by the same mistakes which have delayed the opening of the New Children’s Hospital, according to Social Democrats TD Pádraig Rice.
Deputy Rice, who’s the party’s health spokesperson, said:
“The National Maternity Hospital cannot become another runaway train – its development has been mishandled by successive health ministers, including Tánaiste Simon Harris, and continues to spiral out of control.
“The hospital has been mired in controversy since the beginning – all these years later, we still don’t know why the State is building a valuable public hospital just to hand it over to a private entity.
“Now we learn that a project that was estimated to cost between €500 million and €1 billion by the Department of Public Expenditure could cost €2 billion – an astronomical sum for a facility that the State won’t even own the land that it’s built on.
“Even based on the Department’s initial estimate, the cost per square metre was found to be double that of other maternity hospitals in the UK and Canada – now, that figure has doubled again.
“When it was first proposed, the project was estimated to cost around €150 million – had it been delivered on time, and in a more suitable location, costs would never have gotten so out of control.
“There are major deficiencies in planning and project management in the HSE and Department of Health which must be ironed out – we cannot continue to watch every development they oversee collapse in terms of value and efficiency.
“The Minister for Health needs to get a handle on this project now – we cannot have a repeat of the New Children’s Hospital.”
May 12th, 2025