FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3 - Threadbanned User List in OP

Pretty much every senior minister in Government in the last 10-15 years has been accused of trying to line up a job in Europe at some stage, usually without much, if any, evidence to back it up.

The usual suspects on here love to parrot the same speculation without any hint of critical analysis too.

No words...

Cost of new children's hospital to top €2bn, cttee told (rte.ie)

At this stage of the project "3,000 rooms should have been completed", he said.

Because of "a large number of snags", he said, "to date, 27 rooms have been deemed complete".

More ineptness from the 3 unwise men.

Government criticised for giving housing update during Tubridy hearings (thejournal.ie)

Government criticised for giving housing update during Tubridy hearings

Social Democrats deputy leader and spokesperson for housing Cian O’Callaghan said: “This so-called progress report does not shed any light on how this government will get to grips with the crisis – rather, it presents 53 pages of rehashed information and political spin.”

O’Callaghan added that there are some “glaring” omissions from the report. 

“For instance, it contains no affordable housing delivery figures for the first half of 2023 and fails to mention that last year’s affordable housing targets were missed by some distance. It is also disappointing, but not surprising, that 13 actions in the Housing for All plan have been delayed,” he said.

O’Callaghan continued: “The scale of delivery under this Minister for Housing has been pathetic.”

He noted that only 323 affordable purchase homes and 684 cost rental homes were completed last year, far below the government’s target of 4,100.

On top of what You say, surely penalties come into this equation? BAM should hang their heads in shame on this project, but also the government.

NO final cost

NO project closing date.

WHAT A SHAMBLES

It all goes back to the site chosen. Essentially, building where it is, you are building on a brownfield site, and there will be extra unforseen costs.

Connolly Hospital lacks public transport, which was a big no-no, but given the costs since, opting for the greenfield site of Connolly, together with public transport provision might have been cheaper.

Can’t understand Donnelly actions (or lack thereof) on this one.

It’s a problem he has inherited, so it should have been an easy win for him in his first six months to properly eviscerate the poor planning from before his tenure and to do a big reset on the project with a “final” revised scope and one all-in pricing from BAM. Get whatever the actual final number is likely to be locked in, and out in public, all whilst being able to firmly blame his predecessors.

Instead he seems to have kept long-fingering it, and so makes himself part of the problem too.

The most baffling this is that he used work as a management consultant - stuff like this should be his bread and butter

And nothing in what I proposed would have interfered with that.

The project has been plagued by constant changes to spec, which leads to BAM submitting variation reports and related cost increase claims due to scope variation (which is their right). The board then has to go through an approval process for each claim, all of which adds up to more and more time delays.

Donnelly should have - in his first six months - mandated the NCH board to come up with a “final” final specification with no further variations in scope permitted. BAM would then have been asked to submit the costings for whatever this “final” final scope entailed that was in variation to from the original plans.

It would have resulted in more accurate estimates of the full costs (and the full increases) coming to the fore earlier instead of the drip-drip of increase after increase; and would also have given a hard target end date. It also would make it harder for BAM and the NCH board to keep pointing the fingers at each other each time a further overrun or delay comes to the fore.

Ultimate (and being politically cynical about it) it would also have given Donnelly the opportunity to say, the last guys made a balls of it - here’s the real cost. He’d had, at worst, avoided being blamed for the fiasco that the management of this project has descended to, and at best would even have gained credit for having acted decisively

I see the government are trying to blame the location and design of the Children's hospital for the ongoing delays and costs. They have known about the design and location for many years and yet they still dont know the final cost or the completion date. Stephen Donnelly said "nobody right now" knows the final cost of national children’s hospital. 6 years late and 3-4 times over budget already. 27 rooms have been "deemed complete" out of 3,000 based on BAM's commitments. 

How much more will the people of Ireland put up with?

The cynical move to release this chaotic news during the RTE committees was typical of FFG.

This the same clown with property clouds hovering over his head.

Two td’s(?) in the one day caught cooking the books. Why am I not surprised?

Sunday Times/B&A poll:

Sinn Féin - 34 (nc)

Fianna Fáil - 24 (+3)

Fine Gael - 19 (-1)

Greens - 4 (-2)

Labour - 4 (-2)

SocDems - 2 (nc)

PBP - 2 (nc)

Renua - 1 (nc)

Aontú - 1 (+1)

Inds/Others - 10 (nc)

Fieldwork: June 28 -July 12, sample of 910 voters

Agreed, with inflation and energy prices set to fall and two giveaway budgets to come, the government should be quietly confident of re-election.

Well maybe not this precise government, as God knows how many seats the Greens are going to come back with on 4% of the vote. But certainly a third consecutive government based on some form of agreement between FG and FF looks a distinct possiblity, to put it no stronger than that...