{"id":341995,"date":"2026-03-12T07:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T07:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/341995\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T07:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T07:43:07","slug":"minister-says-bam-does-not-have-enough-staff-on-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/341995\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister says BAM does not have enough staff on site"},"content":{"rendered":"

The main contractor of the beleaguered National Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a> does not appear to have sufficient levels of workers on site to meet their latest completion deadline, the health minister has warned.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a> will meet with the global CEO of BAM<\/a>, Ruud Joosten, in the hospital on Friday. She declined to say whether she believes she will be told of yet another delay.<\/p>\n

The National Children\u2019s Hospital, on the site of St James\u2019 Hospital in Dublin, has been besieged by delays and cost overruns.<\/p>\n

The current substantial completion date is April 30. This is the 16th deadline to be set by the contractor.<\/p>\n

In the Mater Hospital, at the launch of the HSE\u2019s new AI healthcare strategy, Ms Carroll MacNeill said she visited the National Children\u2019s Hospital earlier this week and expressed frustration with the progress of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been there a couple of times in the last few weeks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn every occasion that I\u2019ve been there, I have not seen the number of people working there that I believe I should to meet the April 30 deadline.<\/p>\n

\n I have not been satisfied with the number of rooms being completed each week.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cOver a four-week average, it\u2019s about 167 a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was one week there, February 13, where it was up at 360, but then dropped to 116 the following week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s becoming cumulatively worse relative to where it should be in terms of room completions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Carroll MacNeill said Children\u2019s Health Ireland (CHI) has access to the sixth floor, the lower ground floor, and the ground floor.<\/p>\n

CHI has started building cots and workstations on the sixth floor that can be moved elsewhere once building works are complete because \u201cBAM have been slow\u201d, the minister said.<\/p>\n

BAM ‘has drifted’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She argued BAM has already \u201cdrifted a week, two weeks\u201d, and she is \u201cworried that they will drift more\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Carroll MacNeill said CHI wants access to the \u201chot block\u201d where the surgical theatres and laboratories will be located, as this is where extra time will be required to commission high-tech equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was disappointed to see that there weren\u2019t, it appeared to me, hundreds and hundreds of people working there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they were, I didn\u2019t see them. BAM pointed out to me: \u2018Well, minister, you\u2019re only in the places where you have control. You wouldn\u2019t expect to see them\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said: \u2018Well, where are they then?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018well, they\u2019re in the basement\u2019. I said: \u2018Good, let\u2019s go. Let\u2019s go see.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI went down to the basement, and it was an enormously large empty car park. I counted 16 people, and two of them were working.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just not satisfied that I see, on the times that I\u2019m there, the activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut my dissatisfaction is not just visual and anecdotal. It\u2019s one that\u2019s backed up by the tracked figures by the hospital development board of the number of people who are there and productively working.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for BAM said the National Children\u2019s Hospital is \u201cnow in the final stages of completion and commissioning\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWork is taking place simultaneously across several areas of the building, including highly technical and clinical areas that require specialist commissioning work,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

“The project continues to be resourced to support the work currently underway, with specialist teams continuing to complete the remaining programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louise Burne, Political Correspondent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The main contractor of the beleaguered National Children\u2019s Hospital does not appear to have sufficient levels of workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[120970,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-341995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-childrens-hospital","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}