MAN, THIS BETTER be the best damn children’s hospital the world has ever seen.
In what is beginning to feel like a very sophisticated practical joke at this point, the government this week approved a further €500 million in funding for the National Children’s Hospital, now 18 years and €2.24 billion in gestation.
The extra cash is set to address the findings of a 2019 PwC report which reported “multiple weaknesses in the set-up, planning, budget, execution and governance of the project”. The planning? Weak. The execution? Weak. And how are we on budget? Buddy, you’re not going to believe this.
The good news is that we are definitely not going to spend any more money on it after this. This half a billion was the last straw. Micheál Martin says that lessons will be learned from the process, which has seen the project go many times over its original €650 million estimate since construction began in 2017. Presumably lessons like: “Be long, long gone by the next time we have to build a hospital.”
The catastrophic and seemingly unending overspend on the project would perhaps be slightly easier to stomach if it didn’t feel like such a bad omen for the hospital itself. It is now hoped that the hospital will open to patients by April 2025 (at the earliest), at which point we enter a brave new realm of ways which this could go wrong.
The National Children’s Hospital is just one of many cock-ups in the news this week, each adding to a general sense of unease if not outright despair about the competence with which Ireland is run. Yes, this week the stories have piled up like so many cans at the foot of a stubborn Deposit Return Scheme machine that hasn’t received the memo yet.
Confusion over which bottles and cans could be returned as part of the new recycling scheme led to absolute carnage in some supermarkets. This was highlighted by Fine Gael’s own senator Barry Ward, who apparently did not foresee that Twitter users would make a connection between the failed rollout of the scheme and the government responsible for it.
Ah lads. 😔 pic.twitter.com/A6udcd09l6
— Barry Ward 🇮🇪 🇪🇺 (@barrymward) February 12, 2024
We thought we were tired of hearing about RTÉ and their secret payment scandal, but the Joint Oireachtas Media Committee plumbed new depths this week, uncovering a €450,000 golden handshake payment made to RTÉ’s former CFO Breda O’Keeffe, which was made without board approval.
And to think, she actually came across as one of the better ones during last year’s hearings.
Dee Forbes, who was Director-General of RTÉ from 2016 up until the beginning of the scandal, continues to cite health as the reason why she cannot come before an Oireachtas committee to answer questions about her time in charge of RTÉ. Forbes’ attendance was first sought last summer, when she also declined to attend citing health reasons.
The committee is now taking legal advice on ways by which it could compel Forbes to appear. How edifying that would be remains to be seen – Forbes could show up, pull a John Delaney and refuse to answer any questions on advise from her solicitor – but it does seem like the only way we’ll ever have closure on this extremely shameful and stupid chapter in RTÉ’s history.
This is the moment RTÉ boss Kevin Bathurst revealed that the station paid its former chief financial officer an exit package of €450,000. https://t.co/zx8530J4AZ pic.twitter.com/vObtqyO592
— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) February 14, 2024
You’ll never guess what Ivan Yates thinks about the Irish language, by the way. He seems like the kind of thoughtful and mystical soul who would appreciate the cultural importance of preserving an ancient language.
In an appearance alongside Síle Seoige on Virgin Media’s Six O’Clock Show this week, the former TD and broadcaster Yates falsely claimed that only 16,000 people speak the Irish language and that we shouldn’t be putting so much time, money and effort into it.
Seoige was on the show and discussing co-host Fionnuala Jones’ attempts to get back into the language, when Yates, who was asked for his take on the matter, seemed to mistake the show for a debate. “Níl focal ar bith agam. I couldn’t be arsed to learn Irish and I’m sorry if you’re offended,” Yates said, with significantly more pride than such a statement warrants.
It was an unpleasant and dismissive performance, made all the worse by co-host Brian Dowling’s spur of the moment decision to reach across Fionnuala Jones and Seoige to shake Yates’ hand, in order to convey an endorsement of the Wexford man’s argument.
It makes for pretty painful viewing, with none of the redeeming childlike earnestness of Tommy Bowe’s rather delightful “Ten siblings?!” gaffe.
The fallout from the incident rattled on throughout the week, with Yates defending his comments and Brian Dowling issuing something like an apology on the show’s next broadcast.
Unfortunately for Dowling, the apology – as is the case with so many apologies where you don’t really say sorry – really only compounded the matter. Seoige went on Newstalk and dismissed Dowling’s apology as “gaslighting” and said that he “didn’t actually apologise”. She wasn’t wrong either.
“This is a place of inclusion. This is a place of love. And this is definitely a place of laughter,” Dowling said into the camera. Doesn’t really feel like that applies to this situation but, a very nice sentiment nonetheless.
Dowling did acknowledge that his action “ruffled some feathers,” but fear not Brian. You’ve chosen a good week in which to make your mistake. Everybody’s already raging about everything else.
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