Godfrey's Gospel: Squandermania continues on major projects

I WONDER what the next ‘revelation’ regarding the misuse of public money will unearth.

Last week, we heard of another fiasco at the Department of Arts, when it transpired they had paid €125,000 for a scanner, only to later learn that this was seven years ago and since then it had remained unused – simply because no room was available to house it.

Before that, we had the wall that cost nearly half-a-million, the security hut that set us back €1 million and the daddy of them all, a children’s hospital that will end up costing the taxpayer a whopping €2.2 billion – from an initial estimate less than ten years ago of €800 million.

Here is another one which you may not have heard of – Dún Laoghaire Baths. That eventually cost €18 million, almost double the original estimate. And I’m sure the list goes on and on.

But fair play to our politicians, they know how to justify anything. I couldn’t but smile when minister for health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was asked to speak about the huge over-run for the new hospital. She answered the question by stating this was a one-off cost out of an annual budget of €24 billion. In other words, it was small potatoes.

That may be so, but we still don’t know what the eventual cost will be. The firm building the hospital has a list the length of your arm of items it says were add-ons – all of which will have to be discussed, argued about and eventually settled. They may not get what they have asked for, but they won’t walk away empty handed either.

And all this for a hospital which probably will not be able to find the 4,000 staff needed to run it to its full potential. We hear of vacancies all over the health system, so why should it be any different in this new hospital?

I remember reading that about 900 parking spaces will be allocated to this seven-storey building, but more than half of those will be reserved for staff. If you don’t know the location of the new hospital, it is on the grounds of St James’ – where a chronic shortage of spaces already exists. God only knows what it is going to be like when this new state-of-the-art 6,000-room building is up and running.

Incidentally, there will be 380 individual in-patient rooms complete with ensuite facilities and sleeping accommodation for parents in the new facility. I know absolutely nothing about hospitals or hospital numbers, but someone told me that at present it is estimated that the maximum needed runs to slightly under 300 beds. If that is the case and this hospital is supposed to be capable of catering for our needs for up to 100 years, I think someone, somewhere has got their sums wrong.

But that doesn’t surprise me. There never seems to be accountability. We can have all the angry statements we like from our politicians, but after a few days of headline grabbing, the latest scandal just seems to disappear like an early-morning ground fog.

If you want ratification that it is always easy to spend other people’s money, just take on board the following – irrespective of all the problems with the construction of the new National Children’s Hospital, the same contractor has been engaged by the NHS in Northern Ireland to build a new children’s hospital in Belfast.

The cost is €671 million, but I would be wary to say the least that this project will end up costing that. Especially, bearing in mind the comments made by Northern Ireland’s health secretary, when he said he was not interested in looking at what happened in the past; rather, he preferred to concentrate on the future.

Sounds grand, but surely to God, anyone can see there is a pattern here. Governments don’t mind the small stuff, why should they? If a project ends up costing two, three or even four times the original estimate, who cares?

The new children’s hospital is a classic example. For starters, those who originally signed off on the project are no longer involved, so those who will cut the tape at the official opening can take all the credit.

We are now on our fourth minister for health since construction began on the hospital. Many don’t even remember the previous ministers, let alone what the original price tag was. At the end of the day, all they want is a functioning hospital, where their sick children can get better. Who cares if the cost is double or even treble the original estimate? Because we all know there is no such thing as value for money when it comes to government spending. There never was and history shows there never will be.