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LAST UPDATE | 21 Sep 2024
LABOUR PARTY LEADER Ivana Bacik said that Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly “must take responsibility” for another delay in the construction of the New Children’s Hospital.
The Children’s Hospital, which had a planning application lodged in 2011, and then a subsequent application lodged in 2015 after a significant delay, had been marked for completion by 2020. The project was allocated a budget of €650 million.
Almost ten years later, the new date for the opening of the hospital, which is said to be 90% completed, has now been pushed forward to 2026.
A series of claims from Dutch-based contractor BAM and delays due to Covid-19 have delayed the project significantly. The cost of the project has surged out of control to €2.2 billion to date.
Speaking this afternoon on RTÉ’s Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin, Bacik said that accountability was needed as the public have once again been let down at the elusive hospital.
“I think we need to look here at why the Minister of Health is taking such a hands off approach because ultimately, the health minister is the government line minister responsible for the spend in health,” she said.
The Children’s Hospital overspend has been extraordinary and desperately frustrating for people who want to see value for money.”
She continued: “We need to hear from the Minister is why this further delay is now being projected, and how he proposes, by the way, to reassure us that there’ll be no further public money spent.”
Green Party Minister of State Ossian Smyth echoed Donnelly’s claim that the delay is due to failure by the contractor.
“This is a business project which was contracted in 2017. It was supposed to complete in 2022,” Smyth said. He said he recognised that the pandemic contributed to an unavoidable delay, but finished: “That’s not acceptable.”
Bacik argued that the fault lies with the current Minister for Health and said that he would be called before the Dáil next week to explain the delay.
Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Health, TD David Cullinane, wrote on X that the matter was a “national scandal”.
“Children will now have to wait until 2026 before it sees a single patient despite the Billions spent. Incompetence!” he said.
The failure to deliver the new Children’s Hospital within budget & on time is a national scandal. Overseen by Simon Harris, Leo Varadkar & Stephen Donnelly. Children will now have to wait until 2026 before it sees a single patient despite the Billions spent. Incompetence!
— David Cullinane T.D. (@davidcullinane) September 21, 2024
The New Children’s Hospital will join Dublin’s three existing children’s hospitals under one roof: Temple Street, Crumlin, and the National Children’s Hospital.
The hospital board is due to appear before the Oireachtas Health Committee next week.
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Sometimes I’ll switch Airplane Mode on just to pretend that I’m going to my holidays.
Handy too if you’re giving it to a child so they can play games on it with out the fear they can call everyone in your phone book.
Unfortunately with some phones you can still ring the emergency services when it’s in airplane mode as I found out after giving my phone to my daughter with airplane mode turned on. She was demanding to talk to her Nana which I thought was really cute, until I heard a voice answering her – the emergency operator was not impressed.
Airplane mode is also a great help if you’re unlucky enough to be stuck on 3 network and find yourself staring at a GPRS connection!!!!
Are people afraid to turn their phones off!!!
But this way u can avoid being disturbed while still having access to the phones other functions – alarm clock; phone notes; music etc. your phone also charges twice as fast when airplane mode is on. Handy!
For shift workers to sleep… Uninterrupted
My Nokia 6310i doesn’t have Airplane Mode mode or the Netflix.
Dose it take coins
It also has A and B buttons
Does it take coins
For gods sake…..
DOES IT.TAKE.COINS?
It only takes Punts,
But the Nokia 6310i has a battery charge that’s good for up to 17 days! My digital camera doesn’t make phone calls so I don’t want my phone to take pictures! When I’m out I don’t want anything to do with the internet. I’m happy with 10,000 minutes of calls to any network or landline for just €15 per month.
€15 per month who are you with John,I want in
TescoMobile (http://www.tescomobile.ie/) offer what they say is unlimited calls OR texts (NOT BOTH) for €15 per month if you register your Tesco Clubcard or €20 if you don’t have a Clubcard (which you can get for FREE anyway) The unlimited, under “Fair Usage policy” means not more than 10,000 minutes per month, or 5 1/2 hours a day to any Irish network or landline for 30 days. An interesting point is that your €15 still remains in your account to use for Roaming or international calls (which by the way are around 1c or 2c per minute to landlines in most countries. You can, of course, PORT your current mobile number over to the TescoMobile service easily. Note, I don’t have any connection to Tesco in any way whatsoever other then being a VERY happy customer of the service.
That sounds pretty good. Do you have a data allowance too?
For €25 I get 10000 calls,10000 texts and 15g of data on Tesco mobile sim only 30 day contract. They are on the o2 network and so far has been very reliable. And very easy to port your own number over to
That sounds like a good deal alright. Better than what I’m on at the moment by far. Thanks for that, will have to check them out …
What a ridiculous and misleading article! Turning off the phones data would do half of the things mentioned and if you really want no phone calls or text messages either then why is flight mode better than the off button?
Flight mode is so you can play games or listen to music on the plane. Not much use for anything else. Specially if your going to keep turning it on to see if you’ve missed a call or had a FB update.
I’ll give you a clue @Colin , the answer to your question is in the Article …. read it again SLOWLY this time .
Absolutely OUTRAGEOUS. Colin. I feel a good, strongly-worded, letter to the editor, or your local MP, is the correct course of action in this scenario.
Brilliant for hiding from the world on a Sunday morning when you’re feeling a little fragile ;)
Also very handy for travelling on the Underground system in London or Subway in New York, basically in any subterranean environment. Switching to airplane mode will save battery power. If you don’t the phone will be constantly searching for a signal / wifi / bluetooth signal and drain power at a fast rate.
Ah flight mode, the closest thing to a holiday this year
Well you can still do things with airplane mode on that you can’t when the device is turned off. Not just Netflix you can list to music too or play games ( in offline mode) . I find airplane mode great on my sons iPad to be honest for saving his mobile data and to stop him going online when he shouldn’t like in the middle of hospital appointments but he can still access his music while going asleep. He doesn’t know how to turn off airplane mode but is aware of mobile data Off on button It also stops you getting Skype calls and this is important when the impoverish
I gave you a thumbs-up because you’re a chick.
The mode, when switched on, makes battery charging faster.
Sorry hit reply too soon , when student runs out f credit but wants to beg over wifi lol
Aeroplane mode lol
have your say