Children’s hospital build cost hits €1 billion, making it the most expensive of its kind in the world

 This bill could go even higher.

Today the issue of the children’s hospital costs was discussed in the Dáil.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald slammed the government over reports that the facility, earmarked to be built on the site of St James’s in Dublin, will be the most expensive ever built. In the world. Ever.

The Tánaiste responded saying that after “decades of debate,” the hospital was now being delivered on, and blamed the spiralling costs for the fact that building construction is much more expensive now than they were when it was originally budgeted for. (It’s gone from 3% to 9% over the three years)

Frances Fitzgerald said that the state-of-the-art hospital will also have a completely new research facility.

The Irish Times reports that the much-discussed Children’s hospital will, in fact, be the second most expensive hospital ever built – and the most expensive children’s hospital, ever built. That’s from numbers crunched by architectural data company Emporis which also puts it as among the top twenty most expensive buildings in the world.

There are now calls for authorities to be held to account for this rapidly mounting bill. But the Tanaiste says capital projects often run over budget and cited Terminal 2 at Dublin Aiport as an example. She said now that it’s built, people accept it.

The Irish Times reminds us that four years ago, the cost was put at €400 million euro, by the time planning was lodged over a year later it had risen to €650 million and now it is in the region of €1 billion euro.

Bear in mind that this land comes free.

All will be revealed at a public accounts committee meeting in the coming weeks which will analyse the escalating bill but it does beg the question why similar projects abroad can deliver on similar facilities for at least half the price.

And all the while children are getting sicker, hospital waiting lists stagnate and at some stage, somebody has to ask what the f*ck is going on?

What do you think about the Children’s hospital – worth waiting for or just another fiasco?