Members of the Dáil’s public spending watchdog were said to be “furious” after a bid to bring organisations involved in the National Children’s Hospital before TDs one more time before the election was unsuccessful.
The committee has been closely examining the €2.2 billion project which has been beset by delays and spiralling costs.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had been hoping to examine the accounts of both the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) and Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) on Thursday.
It was the last meeting for the committee before the election is called on Friday and the Dáil is dissolved.
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However, both organisations this week reiterated their position that their accounting officers - David Gunning of the NPHDB and Fiona Murphy of CHI - were unavailable to attend. Both had previously flagged availability to attend meetings in the future, though the current PAC was keen to bring them in before its work ends with the dissolution of the Dáil and invitations were reissued last week.
A NPHDB statement earlier this week confirming Mr Gunning’s unavailability pointed out that he had attended the PAC “on at least seven occasions” since his appointment as chief officer in September 2019.
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, who is retiring from politics, said the PAC had done its best to have NPHDB and CHI in to the committee before the election and highlighted how the alternative dates offered “would have fallen within the time” that the election was being held.
“We need to know when this hospital is going to be complete,” she said. “We need to interrogate the 2022 accounts properly.”
Ms Murphy added: “I think it’s just absolutely unacceptable to find ourselves in this position and I think most of us are pretty furious about that. I certainly am.”
She said there is a lot of public concern about the hospital project and added: “I regret that I’m saying this on the last day that I’ll be in the Dáil and this Public Accounts Committee but this is one of the ones we absolutely needed to have in.
“I just think we’ve been frustrated in our attempt to do that”.
Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy said: “Had somebody told us at the first meeting of the Public Accounts Committee in this Dáil term that by the end of it, that we still wouldn’t have a completion date and opening date for the National Children’s Hospital – and that we still wouldn’t know the final cost of that project – I don’t think many members and certainly people within the public would have believed you.
“And the fact that that’s the case to me is a national scandal.”
The PAC has agreed to ask its successor in the next Dáil to examine the expenditure on the NCH at its earliest opportunity.
Mr Carthy meanwhile wished Ms Murphy “the very best of luck in her retirement” and thanked her for her work on the PAC telling her: “I think you’ve done a very important job in holding public bodies to account.”
He also said: “She has the luxury that the rest of us don’t have in that she knows that she’s not going to be coming back, but it’s her own personal choice and I’ve no doubt that if she was seeking re-election, she would be back.”
Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe thanked her for her “incredible length of service” in the Dáil and in the PAC saying “big projects that have come under huge public scrutiny that perhaps wouldn’t have without Catherine’s work.”
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