Debate contribution: Maternity and Children’s Hospital: Delays

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 26 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

26 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Maternity and Children’s Hospital: Delays

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4677393

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will make the sole contribution on behalf of the Opposition, although, so far, you would not think it by the way that our Executive parties are lifting lumps out of each other when it comes to yet another disaster and yet another discussion about how huge sums of money have been spent in a way that raises eyebrows and, ultimately, drains our public services and public sector of money that could be spent on other matters. When first proposed, the children's hospital was sold as being state of the art, providing, as other representatives have said, services that would include: 155 inpatient beds; a 25-bed programme treatment unit; 10 operating theatres; a day procedure unit; and a paediatric emergency unit with 10 beds. Those are all things that are absolutely critically required. We now know that nothing will commence on the site until next year and that it will not be operational before 2030, which is 10 years later than it should have been. That is nothing short of an embarrassment. The maternity unit, meanwhile, was also meant to be state of the art and provide 16 delivery rooms, 68 beds and an early pregnancy unit. The maternity unit cannot yet open, following the discovery by the contractor of pseudomonas aeruginosa (PsA) in the unit's pipes, and further repairs are required. Nobody really knows when that unit will open either. Yet again, what another utter embarrassment. Are those the only issues? Are there other problems in those buildings that we are not yet aware of? I ask the Minister to commit that the issues that Members raise today, such as PsA, are the only problems that there are with those projects and that there are no problems that we do not yet know about. Are there other issues that the Minister might need to give some oxygen to? Issues that might relate to some other problems that there are. I agree that there should be an independent inquiry into what has happened with those projects. We need to know all the issues and we need to know the causes, the expected cost to remedy them and when they will be resolved. It is worth acknowledging that the Ulster Unionists have the Ministry at the minute, the DUP had the Ministry previously and Sinn Féin has had the Ministry during the lifetime of what we are discussing as the contributions to these problems. The independent inquiry needs to be chaired by somebody outside the Department and outside the Executive to be able to give us the absolute answers that we need. As a snapshot of where we are at present, it is a monumental government gaffe that is costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds. That seems to be the one consistent thing that we do here: when there is a mess-up, it is hundreds of millions of pounds that we overspend and do not account for and that has to be cut from budgets, meaning that other services are deprived. It is disingenuous to lay this entirely at the feet of the Health Minister, making him the sacrificial lamb for the Executive's collective failure. We should also be conscious that the delays and spiralling costs of the maternity project are not an isolated incident. In 2019, the Northern Ireland Audit Office told us about 11 flagship projects that were not completed and that were massively out of control. It told us that the children's hospital had a £130 million overspend and had overrun by five years. It told us that the maternity hospital was six years overdue and £17 million over budget at that stage, but that was not enough for there to be a collapse of these institutions twice during that period of time and not enough to be able to bring us back. I do hope that it brings home the message that, if you collapse these institutions, it causes problems with major projects and major developments on the ground that, undoubtedly, will end up costing money. Maybe this will bring it back. The children's hospital was due to cost £57 million, and it is now £97 million. The maternity hospital was due to cost £223 million, and it is now £590 million. That is what the delays have cost. We need to find out exactly what it was that has caused the problems and how much it is going to cost us to fix them.

740 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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