Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 July 2019
326. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Education and Skills if the development of the Technological University of Dublin being built at St. Brendan’s Hospital, Grangegorman is running on budget; and if not, the amount by which it is over budget. [33314/19]
View answerThe development of the new campus by the Grangegorman Development Agency for Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) at Grangegorman in Dublin 7 is being delivered in phases, under a series of individual contracts, rather than as a single large-scale project. This allows projects to progress in accordance with available budgets, within the overall context of the Masterplan for the 73-acre site and the Grangegorman Strategic Plan.
At this point, Programme 1 of the development is now substantially complete. This phase mainly comprised the site-wide infrastructure and public realm (SIPR) work which provides the basic enabling infrastructure to unlock current and future programmes of development on the site. Programme 1 also involved the conservation and re-purposing of a number of listed buildings on the site for educational use, provision of sports pitches and a children’s playground, and the development of the Greenway Hub as a major purpose built research, technology transfer and business incubation space.
Programme 1, as a whole, was procured within the overall budget of €85 million and was funded by both DIT (now TU Dublin) and the Department of Education and Skills. The percentage variance between contract sum and final account for each of the four main construction contracts within Programme 1 was as follows:
|
Project |
Contract Price |
Final Account Sum |
% Variance |
|
SIPR I |
€25,894,723 |
€30,580,198 |
18.09% |
|
Greenway Hub |
€14,416,756 |
€14,441,658 |
0.17% |
|
Cluster Hub (Adaptive Re-use Structures 17,19,20,21 & 22) |
€7,315,853 |
€7,755,479 |
6.01 % |
|
North House (Adaptive Re-use Structures 08 & 09) |
€5,334,884 |
€5,391,250 |
1.06% |
The variance between the final account sum and contract price for the SIPR I project was due primarily to additional works that had to be instructed, including a redesign of the electricity infrastructure and extension of the water mains and drainage works to public road areas outside the Grangegorman site.
Programme 2 of the Grangegorman development consists of the Central Quad and East Quad and will provide some 52,000m2 of academic space for TU Dublin, catering for a total of 10,000 students and 800 staff. This is being delivered by way of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) and is currently under construction with completion scheduled for 2020.
The contract for the PPP was signed in March 2018, with a construction cost ex VAT of approximately €220 m. At the time of the tender process in 2014, it was envisaged that a contract could be signed with a construction cost of approximately €180 m. However, legal proceedings taken by one of the underbidders delayed award of the contract by over two years (even though the Court ultimately found conclusively in favour of the State). The delay coincided with a period of significant construction inflation as the economy emerged from recession and meant that the original price tendered by the contractor had to be adjusted to ensure the project could successfully be delivered.
Programme 3 is still at the planning stage. This tranche of development will provide for the further consolidation of activity on campus with 5,000 students from the TU Dublin College of Business. A library and supporting student-facing facilities are also planned.
