I do not think the Government should underestimate the level of public anger at the spectacular cost overrun in the development of the national children's hospital. We learned today from The Irish Times that senior officials from the HSE and the Department of Health discussed potential cost overruns almost a year before the date on which the Minister, Deputy Harris, says he was informed of rising costs, in August 2018. The bottom line is that we need to know where was the political oversight of this project. This is the Government's flagship capital project. It is the largest ever project in the history of the Department of Health and the HSE. Are we really being asked to believe that the Minister, Deputy Harris, was not kept informed that costs were rising dramatically? What information was flowing to the Minister in respect of this project between the autumn of 2017 and the autumn of 2018, when he acknowledges that he learned of the issue? If he did not know, why did he not ask? Why was he not insisting on regular updates from his own officials who were directly involved in the process?

We are told that the Minister became aware of the significance of the issue, if not the final figure, in late August 2018, yet this information was not passed to the Minister for Finance until 9 November 2018. This is a scenario that I just cannot get my head around. The Minister for Finance, namely, the person in charge of the purse strings of the State, as part of a collective Cabinet decision signed off in April 2017 on a project at a cost of €983 million. We are being led to believe that the next he heard of any change was in November 2018, over a year and a half later, when he was given the news that the direct build cost of this hospital had increased by €450 million, on top of the other costs involved, bringing the overall bill to €1.7 billion. This begs the obvious question as to what supervision did the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and his Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have over this massive capital project. In the meantime, a budget was being negotiated between September and mid-October. Expenditure allocations for 2019 were agreed and published on budget day. Allocations for current and capital spending were published without this massive overrun being factored in, despite at least one Cabinet Minister being aware of it. Throughout September and early October, there was intense engagement between officials from the Department of Health and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and directly between the two Ministers, Deputies Harris and Donohoe. Not only were they discussing the budget for the Department of Health for 2019, both current and capital; they were also discussing the massive overrun on the current side in the Department of Health in 2018 which, as we know, ended up at €655 million. I cannot envisage a scenario in any company in this country where a senior manager in charge of a capital project, on becoming aware of a massive overrun, would not inform the finance director of the company.

We need to know the consequences for other projects. This will go far beyond some projects being delayed by a few weeks or months. The €100 million that has to be found this year is only the beginning. Multiples of that will have to be found over the next four years. I ask the Minister to inform the House of those consequences and to tell us when we will know the facts. What is being done to reduce the cost of this project now? What does this say about the competence and capacity of the Government to deliver on other major capital projects, not least the national broadband plan, for which half a million homes and businesses are waiting?

I thank the Deputy for the question. This hospital will be delivered and is being built at the moment. The children's hospital is an incredibly important project for this country as we all know.

It is a hole in the ground.

It is going to stand the test of time in terms of the families and children it will help up and down the country. Yesterday, the Taoiseach spoke to the many benefits it will bring in terms of services and emergency services it will provide. I think we all agree it is an important project that must be delivered.

It is in the wrong place, though.

Of course people are angry with what they have heard now about the inflation in the costs for the delivery of this project-----

Inflation?

The Government was warned.

-----and the additional €319 million in capital costs that are going into this project since the original outline for phase 2 was provided in 2017. The Government is angry too-----

What about the sick children?

It is angry a year and a half later.

I would not put those people building a house.

-----and that is why we are taking action to get to the bottom of this problem.

If only it was in charge, it could have done something.

Anger will not build a hospital.

A Cheann Comhairle, could the Minister be allowed to answer the question?

In December of last year, an important decision was brought to Cabinet on the future of this project. Essentially, three options were available. One was to pause the project, meaning even further delay to a project which has been discussed for decades and which the Government is now implementing. The second option was to go out and re-tender the project, again meaning more delay and an even greater cost. The third option was to proceed with this project and pursue this hospital. That was the right decision to make.

Carry on regardless.

If other people would have taken a different decision and put the future of this hospital in jeopardy, I would like to hear that. We believe it was the right decision to pursue this hospital-----

The Minister for Health called it the least worst option.

-----to bring about the many benefits that it will deliver for the next 100 years in this country. Now that we are proceeding with the hospital and have the size of the cost overrun in front of us, we need to establish and get to the bottom of how this occurred.

The Government was warned.

Is anybody in charge?

Was it avoidable? Was there negligence? How do we prevent it from happening again? Can we make cost savings now? That is the process that is under way with the work PwC will do.

The Government has real-time information.

The terms of reference of that review have now been published and we have to get into the process. Alongside that, representatives of both the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Health appeared before Oireachtas committees last week. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, was in committee yesterday and the Minister, Deputy Harris, is in committee today. The Taoiseach has taken questions on this. The chairperson of the board has resigned to protect the integrity of the process and has been replaced. Now we proceed with the PwC process to get answers to those questions that are very important.

Papering over the cracks.

We are committed to delivering this hospital because it is so important for families and children up and down the country.

It is in the wrong place.

Whatever the cost.

It is not the Minister paying for it.

We want to get to the bottom of exactly what happened here in respect of how these costs inflated over time, who knew what and when they knew it, and what happened as a result. The terms of reference for the PwC report and the work it will do between now and the end of March will bring us back those answers and details. Then we can make decisions as to what happens next.

What about the site? Do they mention the site in the terms of reference?

We know a lot of the costs and what has happened there. What we need to understand is why and, on the admittance of some of the people involved in the project, why some of the early warning systems did not work.

The Government was warned in this House.

Early warning systems.

These are the questions that need to be answered so that we can then have a detailed discussion on where we go from here.

Before we proceed, I wish to bring to Deputies' attention that the people who elected them and me are sitting in their homes watching this carry-on. The issue is of enormous importance but they would expect to see us conduct our debates in an appropriate and effective manner. Will Deputies please stop heckling the Minister? If there is continued heckling, I will be forced to suspend the House. We ask a question and must at least allow it to be answered. I ask Deputies to stick to the times allocated, please.

The Minister has not dealt with the elephant in the room, which is the lack of any political oversight over the single largest capital project in the history of the Department of Health and the HSE. Why is it that officials representing the Minister, Deputy Harris, knew for up to a year that the cost of this project was spiralling through the roof before it was even brought to his attention? That is what we are led to believe. Why is it that the Minister for Health himself, on learning that this was a major issue in late August 2018, allowed a budget to be brought into the House and prepared against a backdrop of not knowing that this was going to manifest itself by way of hundreds of millions of euro of an overrun? We have a Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform who was represented on the board but who also happened not to be told. The Minister, Deputy Harris, says his officials told the officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in October yet the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, was not told. Does anyone talk to anyone in this Government? This is all over the place and meanwhile, there is no certainty that the costs associated with the project will not climb further and further. What reassurance can the Minister give to the House and to the people that the costs are going to be reined in and that efforts will be made to reduce the cost of delivering this project?

He cannot give any reassurance.

When will we have clarity on the consequences for other projects in health, education and transport throughout the country that depend on capital funding? When will we have that clarity?

I thank the Deputy for his follow-on question. The political oversight here is clear. It is not correct to state that officials knew that costs were spiralling out of control for a year before this. The issue of the costs in 2017 - the increase in costs of approximately €60 million to €62 million - is a separate issue to what we are dealing with here. We must be very clear to separate these issues in order that we can actually understand what has happened here and what led to the decision the Cabinet had to take in December of last year.

The Minister, Deputy Harris, did not inform the House.

As soon as the Minister, Deputy Harris, was informed at the end of August or beginning of September that there was the potential for a significant overrun here compared with the outline figure in 2017, intensive work was done, while the gross maximum price, GMP, process was happening, to crystallise what those costs might be before the process came to an end. When that information was understood at the beginning of November, it was given to the Minister, Deputy Harris, who immediately made sure that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was informed. From then until December, when the Cabinet made its decision, work had to be done to make sure we knew exactly what had happened in terms of the scale of the costs and how it would be managed by future budgets. The issue was brought to the Cabinet in December for decision as to where to go from there. The decision was taken to proceed with the hospital and to then have an intensive investigation into how this happened

The hospital is in the wrong place.

That process began in January in the committee and it continues today; the Minister, Deputy Harris, is now appearing before the committee. PwC is carrying out a report that will get those answers. We will work with the report and those answers and will take further decisions based on what that brings us.

The Government is wasting more money on that report.

The budget in October was based on fraud. It was basically fraudulent.