€1bn cost overrun for new Children's Hospital

iamwhoiam

The absolute waste of public money in this country is shameful . Shame on everyone involved in this disaster

salmocab

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Has that happened with the hospital ? I read nothing about new specs that made the cost rise like that

Well new specs might be a push more an actual spec. They based original price (it’s not just Bam btw it’s mercury doing the electrical and I think Jones doing the mech) on a broad scope of this many rooms in a building like this. Then when they actually came back with an actual spec there was a load more to go in, including a full sprinkler system for the building. I’m not sticking up for these companies by the way, I’m sure they are sticking the boot in. It’s been a farce it started at a ridiculous low price of half a billion when it was first mooted which was far too low.

ToBeFrank123

I have been trying to find a comparable new hospital internationally.

I found this one. its reasonably new. Not a children's hospital but a fairly good hospital all the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_Hospital_Birmingham

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham is an NHS and military hospital in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, situated very close to the University of Birmingham. The hospital, which cost £545 million to construct, opened in June 2010, replacing the previous Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Selly Oak Hospital. The Trust employs more than 6,900 staff and provides adult services to more than half a million patients every year.

With over 1,000 beds, QEHB is one of the largest single-site NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom.

Facilities
1,215 patient beds
30 operating theatres (23 inpatient, 7-day case)
100 critical care beds – largest single-floor unit in the world[17]
Six MRI scanners, five CT scanners, four gamma camera/SPECT-CT systems, eight ultrasound rooms, five fluoroscopy rooms and five interventional radiology suites[18]
44% of beds in single rooms
No room has more than four beds
Home to 36-bed trauma ward for both civilian patients and military personnel injured whilst on deployment
3,800 car parking spaces
New home of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM)
A multi-faith centre providing chaplaincy and prayer facilities for religions including Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish faiths.

Allowing for inflation and all that, this hospital would probably have cost 1 billion euro to build now.

Our Children's hospital on the other hand will probably cost almost twice that, with a fraction of the facilities and beds.

And both hospitals would use many of the same technologies.

44% of beds would represent something like 535 single rooms. This compares with 380 single rooms for the proposed national children's hospital.

tretorn

facehugger99 wrote: »

What questions?

They are entitled to submit claims.

If those claims are not valid then they get rejected, if valid they are entitled to a increase in the Contract sum or extension of time or both.

I'd be more asking questions of whoever compiled the tender documents.

This seems fairly clearcut.

Why then are we handing PWC 450,000 euros to explain what went on.

There must be communication on file about add ons and what they cost so surely Harris can get reading the files and go into the Dail with the facts. Even if it took a week to read through the files with a forensic accountant surely he could explain what happened. Spending 450,000 examining this mess is wasting more money.

Tacitus Kilgore

salmocab wrote: »

Well new specs might be a push more an actual spec. They based original price (it’s not just Bam btw it’s mercury doing the electrical and I think Jones doing the mech) on a broad scope of this many rooms in a building like this. Then when they actually came back with an actual spec there was a load more to go in, including a full sprinkler system for the building. I’m not sticking up for these companies by the way, I’m sure they are sticking the boot in. It’s been a farce it started at a ridiculous low price of half a billion when it was first mooted which was far too low.

True that the companies are sticking the boot in a sense, but it's as a result of the faliures of the tender process as a whole (i say that referring to tendering as an idea, not just this time).

They would have been provided with a set of (incomplete) tender documents and would have provided their price based on this info along with certain assumptions & clarifications.

They would have known right well at this point that the tender spec was unfinished and that the specification needed a lot of clarification to bring to aworkable state, however, if any one company used their expertise and provided a tender cost to actually construct a working hospital - they wouldn't have got a sniff at actually winning the tender as they would have been 2 or 3x the price of the next lowest tenderer.

In short, all of the competing construction companies/consortiums priced the same set of documents so that they would be compared in an "apples with apples" context, none of them priced the provision of a fully working hospital.

The faliure would be mostly on the design team IMO. But keeping in mind that it's damn near impossible to nail down a full spec on anything pre-construction, let alone a massive infrastructure project packed with technology and big ticket items.






It shouldn't be so expensive though

mariaalice

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

True that the companies are sticking the boot in a sense, but it's as a result of the faliures of the tender process as a whole (i say that referring to tendering as an idea, not just this time).

They would have been provided with a set of (incomplete) tender documents and would have provided their price based on this info along with certain assumptions & clarifications.

They would have known right well at this point that the tender spec was unfinished and that the specification needed a lot of clarification to bring to aworkable state, however, if any one company used their expertise and provided a tender cost to actually construct a working hospital - they wouldn't have got a sniff at actually winning the tender as they would have been 2 or 3x the price of the next lowest tenderer.

In short, all of the competing construction companies/consortiums priced the same set of documents so that they would be compared in an "apples with apples" context, none of them priced the provision of a fully working hospital.

The faliure would be mostly on the design team IMO. But keeping in mind that it's damn near impossible to nail down a full spec on anything pre-construction, let alone a massive infrastructure project packed with technology and big ticket items.






It shouldn't be so expensive though

However, that won't satisfy those who want a named individual preferable a public servant to blame, one that can be either hanged drawn and quartered or at least publicly humiliated and their pension taken away.

salmocab

mariaalice wrote: »

However, that won't satisfy those who want a named individual preferable a public servant to blame, one that can be either hanged drawn and quartered or at least publicly humiliated and their pension taken away.

Make no mistake though there are civil servants to blame, probably through sheer stupidity than anything else but these people do deserve to be sacked as they should be as accountable as they would be in the private sector.

Kelvinwhalley

I read recently that new-build hospitals are actually quite straightforward for the companies that specialize in these builds.

Is there anyone from outside the country involved in design or construction ,that is actually familiar with hospital builds.

Or is it a case of everyone involved finding their feet at the taxpayers expense?

mariaalice

salmocab wrote: »

Make no mistake though there are civil servants to blame, probably through sheer stupidity than anything else but these people do deserve to be sacked as they should be as accountable as they would be in the private sector.

The different reporting structures sound like a convoluted nightmare. I heard the hospital procurement boards were set up to sidestep the department of health so to speak, which would indicate that someone knew the HSE is not competent.

Doc07

Berserker wrote: »

Are you sure? The director is a €140K + expenses role, as of 2017, so it's hard to imagine that the Chairman would be paid €12K.

It’s a state board. You can look it up (and all the others) on stateboards.ie
Chairs can get 10-12k. Some specialist boards like SFI might pay 20k as chair would be a recognized science expert with PhD and full Professorship.

Ordinary member of boards can pay 7-10k but many only pay expenses of attending meetings.
Maine require specific experience eg doctor, barrister, engineer, teacher and some can be just a loyal mate of the Minister or (more justifiably an advocate or someone with proven volunteer record)

salmocab

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

I read recently that new-build hospitals are actually quite straightforward for the companies that specialize in these builds.

Is there anyone from outside the country involved in design or construction ,that is actually familiar with hospital builds.

Or is it a case of everyone involved finding their feet at the taxpayers expense?

We have built hospitals before. I worked on the new hospital in st Vincent’s 15 years ago and Tallaght before that. There have been numerous private hospitals built along with existing hospitals getting new wings or refurbs. The people are here to design and build.

Kelvinwhalley

salmocab wrote: »

We have built hospitals before. I worked on the new hospital in st Vincent’s 15 years ago and Tallaght before that. There have been numerous private hospitals built along with existing hospitals getting new wings or refurbs. The people are here to design and build.

How are they leaving out stuff like a sprinkler system out of the design

facehugger99

salmocab wrote: »

We have built hospitals before. I worked on the new hospital in st Vincent’s 15 years ago and Tallaght before that. There have been numerous private hospitals built along with existing hospitals getting new wings or refurbs. The people are here to design and build.

I'd be interested in seeing how the 2 billion costs have arisen. By any standard it seems excessive.

We built over 1,000km of motorway in the boom (2002-2010) for around €8bn and €1.5bn of this was land acquisition.

That would compare favourably with anywhere in the world, so it's not as if we are incapable of delivering large infrastructure on-time and on-budget.

Something not right about this contract.

smurgen

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

How are they leaving out stuff like a sprinkler system out of the design

Yes,why is something fundamental That's required by law bring left out?

James Brown

I'm loving the way nobody knows why it over ran so much and who is responsible. Any project keeps daily tabs on these things. It's rising to near double the initial estimate. Heads should roll, but likely we'll spend a lot of money for unenforceable recommendations. Leo and Simon will tells us how annoyed they are and so on.

Kelvinwhalley

smurgen wrote: »

Yes,why is something fundamental That's required by law bring left out?

Without delving too deeply on my part

It looks as if the design was threadbare/ambiguous

Preferred bidders get the work at a base price and then fill in the blanks at taxpayers expense

James Brown

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

Without delving too deeply on my part

It looks as if the design was threadbare/ambiguous

Preferred bidders get the work at a base price and then fill in the blanks at taxpayers expense

They go for who's the best record and reasonably priced. It's not the lowest wins. Not saying there wasn't a few of 'our own' looked after. Also I believe these things can be sought under FOI at this stage.

Feisar

On a general point, Design and Build means design as you build. Not, design then build.

Also if the fit out wasn't included in the original tender I definitely would have put that out to the market for competitive pricing. However Bam got their feet under the table.

iamwhoiam

Matt Barrett wrote: »

I'm loving the way nobody knows why it over ran so much and who is responsible. Any project keeps daily tabs on these things. It's rising to near double the initial estimate. Heads should roll, but likely we'll spend a lot of money for unenforceable recommendations. Leo and Simon will tells us how annoyed they are and so on.

Just saying it here . Leo and Simon are all talk , full of sympathy and full of the gab and do sweet f all .

salmocab

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

How are they leaving out stuff like a sprinkler system out of the design

Because the people who put out the initial stuff aren’t the people with any expertise. This is where the problems began.

Kelvinwhalley

Feisar wrote: »

On a general point, Design and Build means design as you build. Not, design then build.

Recipe for disaster right there ^

Kelvinwhalley

salmocab wrote: »

Because the people who put out the initial stuff aren’t the people with any expertise. This is where the problems began.

In in the electrical business

Planning and design is the most important aspect, same with any construction work

There should only be minor adjustments on the build

tigerboon

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

The faliure would be mostly on the design team IMO. But keeping in mind that it's damn near impossible to nail down a full spec on anything pre-construction, let alone a massive infrastructure project packed with technology and big ticket items.:(

Who's the designer. I'd imagine it's someone who pre-qualified as being competent for something of this scale and complexity.I'd imagine their bill reflects this as well.

tigerboon

facehugger99 wrote: »

You can't just cancel a tender and re-tender it because you don't like how it's going.

Yes you can. You are obliged to pay for work done but any project can be stopped

Feisar

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

Recipe for disaster right there ^

Extremely common though.

facehugger99

tigerboon wrote: »

Yes you can. You are obliged to pay for work done but any project can be stopped

Not for the purpose of getting someone else to build it - it can't.

Tacitus Kilgore

tigerboon wrote: »

Who's the designer. I'd imagine it's someone who pre-qualified as being competent for something of this scale and complexity.I'd imagine their bill reflects this as well.

Designer of which element? The depth of design, consultation & discussion etc is absolutely mind boggling on a project of this size.

Each element will have input from various professionals - arch/eng/consultant & the entity who's going to actually produce/provide/supply/install the final element.

This is all before you look at the level of certification, sign off & handover that this project is asking for too.

Then there's the actual building itself - it's not exactly a cheap 'looking' design...

arctictree

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

How are they leaving out stuff like a sprinkler system out of the design

Read somewhere that sprinkler systems are not suitable for hospitals. E.g. someone burns their toast and the IC unit gets soaked, probably killing patients and destroying really expensive equipment.

salmocab

arctictree wrote: »

Read somewhere that sprinkler systems are not suitable for hospitals. E.g. someone burns their toast and the IC unit gets soaked, probably killing patients and destroying really expensive equipment.

Sprinklers don’t operate the way they do in the movies, the bulb on the head only bursts when the temperature melts it. Only that head will discharge. Some use dry pipes so that there is no water stored in them to reduce risk too.

Kelvinwhalley

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

Designer of which element? The depth of design, consultation & discussion etc is absolutely mind boggling on a project of this size.

Each element will have input from various professionals - arch/eng/consultant & the entity who's going to actually produce/provide/supply/install the final element.

This is all before you look at the level of certification, sign off & handover that this project is asking for too.

Then there's the actual building itself - it's not exactly a cheap 'looking' design...

it's not a spaceship they're building


it's only mind-boggling if it's not routine work -ie: you're building hospitals regularly

Tacitus Kilgore

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

it's not a spaceship they're building


it's only mind-boggling if it's not routine work -ie: you're building hospitals regularly

Bit of a dig there? I'm not the one who designed it, i'm simply trying to explain how it is as i see it from my position.


Either way I agree, its not a spaceship, but it has been pinned as the worlds most advanced paed hospital iirc. However, if they spent the last decade actually designing and preparing a spec for the fcuking thing we wouldnt be in this mess, instead they spent god knows how much time and money trying to figure out where to put this underdesigned - half specified hospital.

Kelvinwhalley

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

Bit of a dig there? I'm not the one who designed it, i'm simply trying to explain how it is as i see it from my position.


Either way I agree, its not a spaceship, but it has been pinned as the worlds most advanced paed hospital iirc. However, if they spent the last decade actually designing and preparing a spec for the fcuking thing we wouldnt be in this mess, instead they spent god knows how much time and money trying to figure out where to put this underdesigned - half specified hospital.

nothing personal intended

i'm coming from the viewpoint that the planning/design and cost should be upfront and that a hospital isn't that awfully complicated to build

Tacitus Kilgore

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

nothing personal intended

i'm coming from the viewpoint that the planning/design and cost should be upfront and that a hospital isn't that awfully complicated to build

All good

Indeed it's not terribly complicated in theory - until you try and combine all of the seperately developed design intents and elements to one physical space - incompatibilities/clashes/fantasy ideas then start to become realities & problems and unfortunately these issues all cost money to overcome and integrate.

Doesn't explain the huge leap, but what does is the fact that what has been designed, even in basic form without construction complications - is not deliverable for anything close to the original - what €700m?

The tender was a typical tender imo - shìte, nowhere near ready to build & not indicative of actual final cost.

Kelvinwhalley

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

All good

Indeed it's not terribly complicated in theory - until you try and combine all of the seperately developed design intents and elements to one physical space - incompatibilities/clashes/fantasy ideas then start to become realities & problems and unfortunately these issues all cost money to overcome and integrate.

Doesn't explain the huge leap, but what does is the fact that what has been designed, even in basic form without construction complications - is not deliverable for anything close to the original - what €700m?

The tender was a typical tender imo - shìte, nowhere near ready to build & not indicative of actual final cost.

it should be a billion tops on a brownfield site here with the brown envelopes included

Pints?

Dunno if this figure is true coz I just heard it on radio. 1700 less nurses now in HSE than 2008. 1500 more administrative staff. Funny

beauf

Pints? wrote: »

Dunno if this figure is true coz I just heard it on radio. 1700 less nurses now in HSE than 2008. 1500 more administrative staff. Funny

There is like a Berlin wall of admin staff you have to get around to get help these days. Real jobsworths.

tigerboon

Kelvinwhalley wrote: »

it's not a spaceship they're building


it's only mind-boggling if it's not routine work -ie: you're building hospitals regularly

Looking at the design, they obviously thought they were building a spaceship. Why an oval where every window, every bit of railing, every bit of roof, floor etc is different. Are we too good for a big box? This was designed when the country was on it's knees

vargoo

How does the price go up?

The bids come in, you pick the cheapest, tada!

Gonna be interesting this report, Harris has to be one of the worst Ministers ever at this stage! How has he not been ran at this stage!!

Worse than Martin even!

salmocab

vargoo wrote: »

How does the price go up?

The bids come in, you pick the cheapest, tada!

Gonna be interesting this report, Harris has to be one of the worst Ministers ever at this stage! How has he not been ran at this stage!!

Worse than Martin even!

The price went up because what was priced originally and what was required weren’t even close

AndrewJRenko

salmocab wrote: »

Because the people who put out the initial stuff aren’t the people with any expertise. This is where the problems began.

Really? Have you met the people and reviewed their CVs, or do you jump to conclusions like this after listening to a Marion Finucane panel?

smurgen wrote: »

Yes,why is something fundamental That's required by law bring left out?

Except they're not required by law, but hey, let's not let the facts ever hold back a good witch hunt.

tretorn wrote: »

Why do all the rooms in the new childrens hospital have to be single.

Most children will probably only spend a few nights in hospital having minor procedures so surely they could share four bed wards. Children enjoy being with other children anyway especially when they are on the mend.

Should we take it that you've checked all the clinical research before you come out with these recommendations?

SoundsRight wrote: »

The religious orders are probably shaking their heads in disbelief. They would have had it on time and within budget, but we can't be having that in progressive Ireland.

Progressive? Maybe if the aforementioned religious orders would have paid their many substantial debts to the State, maybe then they'd get to hold some high ground.

jmayo wrote: »

Prestige ?
Come on a lot of these people have big egos and to be asked to be part of one of the biggest building projects of the last 50 years could be hard to pass up.

Besides historically no one has ever been made responsible for anything in Ireland. :rolleyes:

This could be a turning point.
And it is a about time.

This board and executives are responsible for the spending of billions and a cost overrun of a hundreds of millions deserve the highest scrutiny on behalf of the taxpayers of the state.
The sad thing is that we have often incompetent gimps of politicians carrying out some of that scrutiny.

I don't want an attitude as displayed by that arrogant bast*** Dukes, when he looked down upon politicians for demanding to know from him as the public's so called representative on the board of Anglo Irish Bank/IBRC what was going on.

And he was being paid for that position out of the public purse on top of his publicly funded pension of €120k.

Dukes was fulfilling his legal requirements as a Director. Any director's first responsibility is to the company, regardless of how they are appointed or who they are supposed to be representing. If he had done anything else, he'd have been breaking the law.



But yes, you'll have your turning point all right. The turning point that no-one will want to lead this project, just like no-one wants to lead the HSE. Be careful what you wish for.

foxy06 wrote: »

Everyone in the country knows better than the 8 people who decided on this site. It's a ridiculous location for a new hospital.

Everyone in the country couldn't tell their arse from their elbow when it comes to making decisions like this. They're no more expert in this as they are in carrying out the cardiac surgery that will be going on in the hospital. But for some reason, lack of expertise doesn't hold many people back in deciding they know better.

salmocab

No oddly I haven’t reviewed their CVs but it’s surely self evident that the original ball park quote was for a building that looks like a hospital and the price we are at now is for a hospital. I was making a point that we certainly have the people in the country to design and build a hospital as we have managed many times but that the original estimates were only based on a hospital looking building. Whoever got the original quotes that were so off can’t have been involved in tendering out hospitals before.

Also I’ve never listened to Marion finuccane in my life.

AndrewJRenko

salmocab wrote: »

No oddly I haven’t reviewed their CVs but it’s surely self evident that the original ball park quote was for a building that looks like a hospital and the price we are at now is for a hospital. I was making a point that we certainly have the people in the country to design and build a hospital as we have managed many times but that the original estimates were only based on a hospital looking building. Whoever got the original quotes that were so off can’t have been involved in tendering out hospitals before.

Also I’ve never listened to Marion finuccane in my life.

Don't you just love how people with no actual knowledge feel entitled to make up stories without really having a clue what they're talking about?

Dakotabigone

Has Simon Harris a 191?

salmocab

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Don't you just love how people with no actual knowledge feel entitled to make up stories without really having a clue what they're talking about?

I do indeed it’s delightful, I also enjoy the outrage when someone can’t believe that others won’t accept they know best.

Allinall

Dakotabigone wrote: »

Has Simon Harris a 191?

A 191 what?

AndrewJRenko

salmocab wrote: »

I do indeed it’s delightful, I also enjoy the outrage when someone can’t believe that others won’t accept they know best.

Problems arise when those who claim to know best have no expertise or qualifications in the areas that they claim to know best about.

Snow Garden

Pints? wrote: »

Dunno if this figure is true coz I just heard it on radio. 1700 less nurses now in HSE than 2008. 1500 more administrative staff. Funny

Not sure about that but there are layer and layers of middle management in the HSE providing very little value add. How they validate their own existence is beyond me but they are excellent at passing the buck around and around until people give up chasing them. It's a bureaucratic nightmare and will never be fixed.

Lantus

It's not an overrun. It's gross incompetence, ignorance, stupitity, deliberate fraud or a combination of those 4 but let's please stop calling it an overrun.

It's like deciding you want to have a baby and ending up getting two dozen women pregnant and calling yourself over sexualised.

orourkeda1977

If you employed a team of staff to come up with a plan to destroy a project, they could not have done a better job.

What is going on?

Berserker

Allinall wrote: »

A 191 what?

Think it's a police code. Like 420 for marijuana. Not sure what 191 is though.