Joanna Byrne Questions Dust, Fire Risks and Delays at New Hospital
Joanna Byrne pressed project officials over a small fire, smoke in ducts and widespread dust contamination at the new hospital, warning these issues could create additional rework and delay handover. She asked about cleaning standards, vacuum testing of ductwork, insurance coverage and potential impacts on equipment warranties.
Investigation into smoke and ducts: Joanna Byrne challenged executives on the scope of the investigation after a small fire below a ceiling left smoke staining. She sought clarity on whether smoke or dust in ventilation ducts had been fully identified and would be thoroughly cleaned before patient handover.
Extent of contamination and cleaning needs: Officials revealed the hospital contains 75 kilometres of ductwork, and an assessment found 40% requires additional cleaning. Byrne highlighted the sequencing problems and repeated rework that have re-contaminated ducts despite prior cleaning rounds, creating further tasks for contractors and clinical engineers.
Risk to equipment and warranties: Byrne raised concerns that equipment already placed in clinical areas may need removal, sterilisation and reinstallation, which could affect warranties and add costs. She asked project leads about owner-controlled insurance, the practicality of repeated cleaning and how routine hospital duct maintenance will be managed.
Consequences for opening and patient care: The exchange focused on whether the dust and fire-related remediation are on the critical path and how delays will be minimised. Byrne emphasised the human cost of further slippage, noting the rework could postpone the time when children can be treated in the new facility.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
I just want to pick up on some comments by Mr Devine, if I can, in relation to the small fire that occurred in the hospital last week. You seem to be fairly emphatic that this wasn't going to cause any further delays and BAM sought to repair the damage immediately. Just from my own understanding, obviously if you take a sealant away, you've got a sealant damaged to the extent it has to be taken away, that is inevitably going to cause some sort of a delay, whether it's a minor delay or not. But it's additional work on top of all the defects that already need to be reworked and closed off. So I would suggest to you that there will be some sort of a delay. But what I kind of want to tease out with you a little bit is the comment around the investigation around smoke in the ducts. Do you know what that entails? I'll start on the first point. The reason it's not a delay is it's not on the critical path. And what the critical path is, it will take a matter of probably less than a week to repair that section of the corridor. There are other aspects, we talked of rework across the project, which will take a lot more than a week. So yes, it does, as David said, it does take resource away from other work. But it won't be the last thing that's required to be done on the job. So it's not a critical delay to the job, but it does disrupt other work. And I presume that's covered by BAM's insurance. There's an insurance policy, there's an owner-controlled insurance policy, including BAM, that covers that. And BAM have indicated that to the insurance company. In terms of the investigation, the fire happened actually below the ceiling, but there was some smoke damage. But as a proper due diligence, whether it be dust in ducts or whether it be smoke damage or staining in ducts, they will be, if it's found under investigation that there is, they will be thoroughly cleaned. Okay. And Mr. Gunning, on that point, it's something that I wanted to raise with you. In your opening statement, there is the alarming aspect of the dust in the air ducts. We all know accumulation in HVAC systems can cause fires. So it's kind of a related topic. When dust builds up, it restricts airflow, forcing the system to work harder, to overheat. The excess heat, combined with electrical sparks from motors or wiring or whatever it may be, can ignite a flame, leading to fires. And we've seen this in houses everywhere, right across the board. Has the risk of fire in the air ducts been explored and remediated? Is that a consideration? Our primary focus on the ducts at the moment is the ducts have been, as Fionnuala told me, that they've been cleaned twice already. And because of, we would regard kind of not good practice. The rework that has gone on, for example, has allowed other dust to go into the types of vents that are above your heads. That's what we're talking about. So our priority is, and it's a requirement on the contract, is that the ducts are clean. That there's no dust in them when this hospital is handed over to us. And we can, in turn, hand over to CHI a hospital where, in the operating theatres, there isn't a pile of dust being blown around. So it's critically important that this happens. And the issue we have is, as I said, this has been done before. Now it needs to be done again. This kind of rework gives rise to delay, which unfortunately is delaying the time when our Irish children can be treated in this hospital. I would imagine a bit of common sense here would be that that's probably the last thing to be done if there's work ongoing at every stage. I would totally agree that there's a sequencing on this and that the sequencing is not right. But, you know, we're not the contractor. Yeah. And just what I kind of wanted to work around with you, your last line in that section of your statement says, I think you'll appreciate that we cannot accept critical areas such as theatres where the contract has not removed the dust. In reference to the main issue in the dust in the ventilation, were you talking about any level in particular? Or were you talking about the hospital as a whole? The critical areas are, you know, they're very important. Of course. Like the ICUs and the operating theatres and all that stuff. But just to say, there's 75 kilometres of ductwork in this hospital. As of last week when the consultant or when the subcontractor finished the assessment, 40% of that requires additional cleaning. So we're talking about a significant effort. And it's not just in one place. It is, you know, the 75 kilometres is all over. Maybe, Felm, you know exactly, maybe more detail where. Just curious which levels are of concern to you. It is, as David says, it is throughout the hospital. I don't have the exact detail of which is worse. Like if you take the two levels that they're actually working on at the moment, which is critical care and operating theatres, which we're waiting for early access, like the critical care floor wasn't that bad. And there are set international levels for the amount of dust particles in ductwork. It differs between a supply duct and an extract duct. Extract is obviously more than supply. Supply is the key one because that's the one that might impact the patient. Where I'm trying to go with this, you have early access for fish out already on level six, lower ground and level zero. Lower ground and zero from what I can make in that part of the hot block statement is the clinic and engineering as labs and diagnostics. Am I right? So that would suggest to me that there's already significant equipment perhaps placed in these rooms that will be affected by the dust. The equipment itself, not just the ventilation areas, in my view, would need to be removed, would need to be cleaned, would need to be autoclaved and sanitised before it can be returned in a sterile, fit-for-purpose state. And if you're going to go to all that effort of taking it out, cleaning it, sanitising it and putting it back in, are you going to have to rinse and repeat that whole process if you were to go through it all again? Because I'm conscious there's a line in your statement, Mr Gunning, about the warranty only kicking in on the first use of patients. I would imagine, and I'm open to clarification on this, but I would imagine if you have to take equipment out of a hospital and sterilise and clean it, that you could perhaps be affecting the warranty before it's even... So there's a vicious circle of events here that could potentially have further ramifications and add additional costs that I don't believe are being considered at this point. Just to assure you, Deputy, like ducts in hospitals are cleaned every day, not every day of the week, but basically they're routinely, annually they're cleaned on a rotating basis. So there's very experienced people in the CHI team and our own joint team on the equipping of the building, clinical engineers, they will remove that equipment. If somebody's going up to access the duct to get in to clean it, the equipment will be taken out of that room temporarily, it will be stored and then be put back in. And they do this routinely all the time across the hospitals. So we will work with the contractors to ensure that this fantastic equipment that we've procured for the building will not be impacted in any way. That's good to hear, because the fact that it is referenced in the opening statement, it's obviously a cause for concern for you guys in relation to the ducts of the ventilation system, or you wouldn't be referencing it. So I think it's important to tease out where the equipment fits into this. And just, if I may, before we move on from this, how far back was this issue with the ducts and the dust flagged? It was flagged, this round, it was flagged before Christmas by our M&E consultants, who obviously were responsible for the duct work, or for signing off the duct work. And they saw part of their inspections on site, they saw some of the ducts were re-contaminated. This isn't recent enough, this isn't going back to the major generic faults highlighted by the expert, the expert who installed the ventilation system and has since moved on from the project. Sorry, Deputy, this is all the dust, the additional dust as a result, as you said yourself, the sequencing of the work, number one. And number two, all that rework that we talked about, all those 100,000 defects over the last 15 months or 18 months have re-contaminated the ducts. I think the second time the ducts were cleaned, about the middle of last year, or Q2, Q3 only last year, the second round of cleaning happened. So this additional contamination has happened between that time and now. And it has been flagged, it was flagged earlier. And that's why we requested, as an executive, we requested a VAM to carry out full, they're called vacuum tests, they're the tests to determine the extent of the dust in the duct work. They were requested for the whole building, which they have now completed. Yeah, and I think that's crucially important because the last thing we want is finally to get a substantial completion date and for another fire or something to occur and undermine everything and everybody's patience and investment in this. Ms. Nugent, I'm conscious I'm really tight on time. I intended to come to you before now. I apologise on that. Just in relation to the 8 million deficit in the 2024 accounts, I know the Comptroller and Auditor General is moving on to the next set of accounts the middle of this year. Are you anticipating a further deficit? Yes, we are. I might hand over to my colleague. 2025, we effectively broke even. And we've now moved on to 2026, you know, obviously from an operational perspective. I'm going to tell him I might come back to that later. Thank you.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
