Children's hospital adjudicator
Deputy Kelly questions why the board has not challenged repeated adjudicator awards on the children’s hospital contract and asks about a judge being brought in. The Minister says the net contract change is small relative to claims, that the board has challenged decisions in court, and that it should minimise costs to taxpayers.
I return to this strange letter from the Minister for Health to the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, the Taoiseach and many others regarding the children's hospital. Why has the Government not asked the board why the independent adjudicator keeps awarding large sums in favour of the contractor? It is a pretty obvious question. Sums of €17 million and €108 million have been awarded. Last May, the CEO of the board told me at the Committee of Public Accounts after a lot of questioning that he had full confidence in the independent adjudicator. Why, prior to that, did the board require the eminent retired judge to adjudicate on whether this adjudicator should stay in place?
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Why is the Minister not asking the board about those sums and why the board keeps losing to BAM?
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Second, why was there a request to bring in a judge to adjudicate on whether this individual should stay in place?
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It is worth making the point that in terms of the total value of claims that have been adjudicated in this period, the net change in the value of the contract is a small amount of the total claims that have been made by the contractor.
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On the standing conciliator, to whom I assume Deputy Kelly is referring-----
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I referred to the independent adjudicator.
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Standing or independent; it is the same point. It is not really a question for the board as to whether it has confidence in that independent adjudicator. Indeed, it has challenged the decisions that were made by the adjudicator recently through the initiation of High Court proceedings. As I said in answer to questions earlier, I expect and support the board to take all the steps it needs to minimise the cost to the taxpayer.