BAM Ireland director 'understands frustrations' on National Children's Hospital delays
The executive director of BAM Ireland, the contractor involved in the construction of the new National Children's Hospital in Dublin, has said he can understand people's frustrations surrounding the delays the project has faced.
Alasdair Henderson also acknowledged that the delivery of the hospital is currently "a bit complex."
The most recent date given for the opening of the new children's hospital is this September, but a nine-month commissioning period will mean it will be at least June of next year before it receives its first patients.
The project has failed to meet its final deadline 15 times since 2020.
David Gunning, the Chief Officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), last month appeared before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.
Mr Gunning told the committee that he did not have faith in BAM and that he estimates it is costing the State €2 million each month the project is delayed.
He said the contractor, BAM maintains the delays are caused by design change, something which he disputes.
Mr Henderson today provided a brief update on the project.
He was speaking in Co Louth at the site of another project for which BAM is the contractor, the Narrow Water Bridge.
The bridge will link Omeath in Co Louth with Warrenpoint on the other side of the border in Co Down.
The project is on track to be delivered on time by the end of 2027 and within budget.
Speaking about the new National Children's Hospital, Mr Henderson said that everybody working on the project is determined to get it finished as quickly as they possibly can.
He said: "We're 98% plus finished on that project. It's a really important project for the State, just like this one [the Narrow Water Bridge].
"Again, the benefits that are realised from that when you deliver those projects are huge.
"Yes, it's a bit complex right now. I think everybody understands that, but understand that when it's delivered, what it means for paediatric care across the island of Ireland is absolutely transforming," Mr Henderson added.
Mr Henderson was also asked if he could understand people's frustrations surrounding the delays the construction of the hospital has faced.
He replied: "I can understand that. I think, rest assured, that everybody working on that project, and every part of it, is determined to get the project finished just as quickly as we possibly can."
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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Children's hospital commentary often `ill-informed' contractor BAM tells Minister for Health
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The Journal
3 days ago
- The Journal
FactCheck: How will Ireland's new system for organ donation work?
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However, not all commentators have seen the bill this way. Criticisms of the bill aired in the Oireachtas, when it was the subject of seven debates, ( which can be read here ), including concerns about increases to hospitals' administrative burden, or how data is collected. However, after dozens of amendments — a normal part of the passage of legislation through the Dáil and Seanad — it appears that the Act in its current form enjoys broad support. Online commentators have taken more extreme issues with the Act, and what it has set out to do, taking issue with the very idea of opting-out of organ donation. 'Do you want the state to have ownership over your organs???' reads the caption on a Facebook video, viewed more than 55,000 times since it was posted in May. 'The State will take ownership of the organs of all of its citizens under presumed consent, with the introduction of the Human Tissue Act,' a woman in the video says to camera. The video's description reads: 'If you don't protect domain over your own body, the State can inject and implant whatever they see fit.' But how exactly does the Human Tissue Act change things? Does it mean that the State will own your organs once parts of the legislation become law next week? How organ donation works now Experts who spoke with The Journal said that the new legislation was the first of its kind in Ireland. 'The Human Tissue Act itself is quite a beast,' Colin White, the National Advocacy and Projects Manager with the Irish Kidney Association has said. 'It covers a large, large area. Transplantation and organ donation is only Part Two of the [six-part] legislation.' He also pointed out that the law has not yet been enacted because the Government has sought to figure out how to set up parts of the system, such as the opt-out register. Karen Kilraine, Barrister at Law at The Law Library also told The Journal that organ donation and transplantation in Ireland was largely governed by medical guidelines, ethical guidelines and the principle of consent before now. 'There is no statutory regulatory authority equivalent to the Human Tissue Authority in the UK,' she explained. The Human Tissue Authority in the UK regulates post-mortems, organ donation and transplantation, as the use of human bodies for research, anatomy training, public displays, or medical treatment. The current system in Ireland effectively means that the main considerations for organ donation are the wishes of an individual donor's family, as well as confirmation that the donor is dead. White outlined how this works in practical terms. 'To be in the position to be a potential organ donor, typically you have to be in an intensive care unit on a life support machine, and two independent doctors have to declare you brain stem dead,' he said. 'At that point, the possibility of organ donation can be broached.' There were 263 organ transplants performed in 2024, including 84 from deceased people and 30 from living donors, according to the HSE . The majority of these (175) were kidney donations. (A single dead donor can give multiple organs to separate recipients. For example, both kidneys can be transplanted). White noted that only about 1-2% of people who die will do so in such a way that they are eligible for organ donation. Statistics from other countries give even lower figures . This is largely due to the need for such organs to be recovered shortly after death, but also because the cause of death might damage a person's organs. Initially, Ireland's organ donation system focused primarily on kidney donations. 'The organ donor card was introduced by the Irish Kidney Association back in the late '70s,' White said. 'Originally it was the Kidney Donor Card, because the kidney was the organ that was being mostly transplanted. For the other organs, the science hadn't quite got there. 'Over time, that has morphed into the organ donor card that we know today. The Irish Kidney Association is still responsible. Every single organ donor card that's in the country comes out of our office.' However, despite what many people believe, the card itself doesn't have any legal weight. 'The donor card has space for two signatures on the back of it, one for the owner and one for a person's next of kin,' White explained. 'The idea is then that they take the card and go to a family member and say, 'Here, there's a space for you to sign this. Will you sign here?' 'That's its primary function — it's an icebreaker into the conversation about organ donation. Because typically, it's not something that comes up at the dinner table 'How was your day, dear? And, oh, by the way, in the event of me being a potential organ donor, would you make sure it goes ahead, please?'' Whether or ot not a person has a card, the family of a deceased potential donor will be approached for consent to donate their organs. 'Even if the deceased carries a donor card, their next of kin (as in nearest relatives) still have to consent to the donation,' barrister Karen Kilraine said. Ultimately, both the card and the conversations it may have prompted are only a guide to a family's decision after a person has died. Advertisement What will change under the new law? Under the incoming rules, an opt-out register will be set up, whereby people can register that they do not want to donate their organs after death. There are no plans for an equivalent opt-in register. 'If somebody feels 'I'd rather not be considered a potential organ donor, I'd rather not have my family to have to address that question', they will be able to go to a HSE-run register and record their details,' White told The Journal. 'So in the event that they die in the circumstances where organ donation is a possibility, the first step from the hospital will be to consult the opt-out register.' People who are not included on the register will be 'deemed to consent' to organ donation. However, that is not the end of the legal hurdles. As under the previous system, a person's next-of-kin still has to agree to the donation. The new legislation formalises the concept of a 'designated family member', and will rank these in order, from spouses and civil partners, through siblings, down to friends. If more than one person shares the highest applicable rank, just a single objection is enough to stop an organ from being donated. 'Where a deceased person is not on that register and there is therefore 'deemed consent', a doctor cannot remove organs unless what is termed a 'designated family member' has confirmed in writing that they have no objection to donation,' Kilraine told The Journal. 'The Act does not change that. The decision with respect to organ donation is ultimately settled after death and by someone other than the deceased.'' Given these new restrictions, how is the new system expected to increase the number of organ donations rather than discourage them? 'The idea behind it is to try and kind of make it more the cultural norm, that it's part of the dying process,' White said. 'Under the current system, the conversation might be 'did your loved one have an organ donor card?', or 'did you ever have a conversation about organ donation?', or 'do you think organ donation is something that they would have considered?' — that kind of phraseology.' 'After 17 June, the question will be more about, as the legislation says, 'Is there any reason you think your loved one would have objected to organ donation or not want to have been considered?'' Further restrictions But the legislation still places further restrictions around organ donation after a person dies. Over six chapters, Section 2 of the Human Tissue Act breaks down the rules, principles, and priorities that have to be accounted for during the process. These are too long to delve into in detail, but generally, the Act takes a cautious tone when it comes to donating a dead person's organs. 'In the absence of 'opting out', all adults who are 18 years of age or above, ordinarily resident in the State for 12 months or more, who do not lack capacity and or have not for a significant period of time before their death are deemed to consent to organ donation,' Kilraine said. 'People not satisfying these criteria include children, who cannot be deemed to have given consent.' Kilraine also noted that some sections appear to give 'safeguards', ranging from people who would have consented to donate some particular organs but not others, to those who don't want their organs donated but for whatever reason had never opted out. 'It's not a case of, 'Well, I never got around to opting out, so the State are going to take my organs',' White told The Journal. 'The public can rest assured that if a family member hasn't opted out, their relatives will still be the final port of call. It's written very clearly into the legislation: hospitals cannot bypass the family.' Organs and ownership Given the emphasis on the consent of a person's family, is there any weight to the notion that people's organs will become property of the State, as has been claimed online? 'A dead body is not considered property in Ireland; this is to respect and afford dignity to a dead body and which supersedes any concept of ownership,' Kilraine explained. The term 'property' does not appear once in the Human Tissue Act, nor does the term 'ownership'. The term 'owner' does appear three times, but always in relation a building or business, e.g. 'the owner of the hospital'. Instead, dead bodies and organs are legally put under 'authority', a far more limited concept than that of property. 'Next of kin have certain rights and responsibilities with respect to a dead body including with respect to burial and decisions regarding post mortems and organ donation,' Kilraine said. 'This does not amount to ownership.' 'Where a death is sudden, unexplained or in suspicious circumstances, the coroner has legal authority over the body and can order a post-mortem and or retain the body for investigative purposes. 'This authority when in force supersedes any rights of the next of kin or family. It is however as a custodian, and neither the coroner or the State have ownership of a dead body. 'None of the above are changed by the Act. Organs of dead people would not be said to be property of the state or of anyone else.' The gift of life The new Irish legislation follows opt-out systems that have been put in place in other countries, including in every jurisdiction in the United Kingdom. However, since being introduced in England in 2020, it has not had a major impact on the number of organs that have been donated. In large part, this was due to potential donations being overruled by patients' families. Of the 1,036 cases where deemed consent applied, the family did not support donation 446 times, according to statistics from the NHS . In many ways, the conversation encouraged by the Kidney Donor Cards since the '70s is still the key to successfully enabling organ donations. 'When we lose a loved one, there's very much that element of powerlessness,' White told The Journal 'And then there's this opportunity, if you're in that 1-2%, to transform the lives of others.' 'I've witnessed, over the years, donor families coming up to the transplant recipients to say 'thank you', which is mind blowing. The recipients say 'No, hold on there! It's your loved one and your decision that has allowed me to do what I'm doing'. 'But the donor families say: 'No. It brings some degree of meaning to the loss of our loved one.'' 'We have to think of organ donation, not only in terms of the recipients, but equally of the donor family,' White said. 'We've lost a loved one, but there are other families out there who are getting to celebrate another of life's milestones, to see another Christmas, to share another sunrise.' The Human Tissue Act introduces a new framework for organ donation, however the rights of surviving family members remain paramount. 'Empower your family. Have the conversation,' White implored. 'Or, some might put it a different way: take the decision out of your family's hands by letting them know what you want.' Want to be your own fact-checker? Visit our brand-new FactCheck Knowledge Bank for guides and toolkits The Journal's FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network's Code of Principles. You can read it here . For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader's Guide here . You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here . Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... It is vital that we surface facts from noise. Articles like this one brings you clarity, transparency and balance so you can make well-informed decisions. We set up FactCheck in 2016 to proactively expose false or misleading information, but to continue to deliver on this mission we need your support. Over 5,000 readers like you support us. If you can, please consider setting up a monthly payment or making a once-off donation to keep news free to everyone. Learn More Support The Journal
The Journal
3 days ago
- The Journal
Tánaiste says gardaí should investigate treatment of nursing home residents in RTÉ documentary
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