Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South West Seán Crowe has said that the progress made towards the completion of the new Children’s Hospital is encouraging, but that there was still a long road to its opening and that lessons had to be learned from the length of time and cost involved in the project.

Speaking after visiting the site as Chair of the Oireachtas Health Committee, Teachta Crowe said:

“I visited the site of the new Children’s Hospital recently as part of a delegation from the Oireachtas Health Committee. It was great to see the progress from my last two visits and it will be a very impressive facility when it is completed. Those on site tell me that the concourse will be the length of Grafton Street. The gardens and areas are clearly designed with children in mind and I believe it will be far more conducive to their wellbeing than some of the cramped and out-dated facilities currently in use in paediatric medicine.

“However, we need to use this project as a learning experience. We cannot afford to allow major infrastructure projects like this drag on and for costs to spiral out of control. Ground was broken in 2016 and it could be almost a year until construction concludes and the fitout can begin. The costs have gone from less than €1 billion to over €2 billion. This cannot be repeated in the future if we want to be able to deliver the infrastructural needs of the Irish people.”