Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell gave up and took her child home from hospital. Picture: Gerry Mooney

A high-profile Government TD has admitted she was embarrassed to witness the overflowing A&E in Crumlin Children’s Hospital when she attended at the weekend with her sick child.

In a startling admission, Fine Gael backbencher Kate O’Connell described the state of the emergency department as “unacceptable”.

She said she was so embarrassed, she hoped nobody there would recognise her as a politician.

Ms O’Connell waited eight hours before “giving up” and bringing home her child, who was the “least sick” there.

She made her remarks at the Oireachtas Health Committee yesterday, where she said children should not be forced to endure such ordeals in A&E.

“It is not acceptable and I was embarrassed as a TD,” Ms O’Connell admitted.

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Crumlin has been hit by a surge in respiratory illnesses and has been forced to cancel most waiting list surgery for the coming weeks.

The committee, which was discussing an update on the cost and progress of the new €1.4bn National Children’s Hospital, heard construction was slower than had been hoped.

Committee members heard that almost another €1m has been paid out to the building firm BAM.

Fred Barry, chair of the National Paediatric Development Board, which is responsible for building and equipping the new hospital, confirmed that it has since received a significant volume of extra claims from the builder.

The hospital has been at the centre of controversy over its runaway costs.

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He told the committee that a lot of claims have been submitted and around half have been put through determination so far by employers' representatives.

"The total award to the contractor to date is less than €1m. That is well within the provisions we have been given by the Government as an approved budget," he said.

Questioned by Fianna Fáil spokesperson on health Stephen Donnelly, Mr Barry said he could not speculate on how much construction inflation would be in two years' time - one of the cost areas over which the board has no control.

He said that "across the 12-acre site, the excavation, piling, and the structural frame to the underground basement for campus-wide facilities management, energy centre, and the 1,000-space underground car park are nearing completion. The first window has actually been installed in the hospital."

However, he conceded that "we would like it if more progress had been made".

But there is three years of construction to go and given the "big players" involved in the building of the hospital he believed the lost time can be recovered. So far the delays have not led to additional costs, he told Mr Donnelly.

Questioned on whether the board had received any instructions around the plan to include private consulting rooms at the new hospital, he said that no fresh directives were given.

This is despite a Government plan to remove private practice from public hospitals.

The committee was told that in the event of this happening the private rooms can be integrated into the public facilities.

There had been no engagement on proposals to move the Coombe maternity hospital near to the new children's hospital since 2015. The hospital's medical director Dr Emma Curtis said the satellite centre in Connolly Hospital, opened during the summer, was working well.

The urgent care and outpatient clinics at the centre are operating at curtailed hours because more specialist staff need to be recruited.

Irish Independent