Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen has said the government "would be gone if it wasn’t for Brexit".

It comes as his party criticised the government over the National Children’s Hospital cost overrun and the nurses' strike.

The costs of the hospital have spiralled to more than €1.7bn and nurses are on their second day of strikes in two weeks, with more to come.

Fianna Fáil is demanding to know which State capital projects will now be delayed as a result of the cost overrun at the NCH and accused the government for failing to avert the latest strike action by nurses.

Despite the criticism, the party has stopped short of calling for Health Minister Simon Harris to go, a move that would end the confidence and supply agreement and would bring down the Fine Gael-led minority government.

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman Stephen Donnelly was asked if he has confidence in Mr Harris and if he would be calling for him to resign.

Mr Donnelly said: “"I’d say you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Ireland who has confidence in this government when it comes to healthcare".

He listed the handling of the nurses’ strike, the cervical cancer scandal, hospital waiting lists and the National Children’s Hospital saying: "the list goes on and on and on".

It was put to him that Fianna Fáil are willing to prop up the government.

Mr Donnelly said: "We’re not propping them up. We don’t support them, we don’t want them in government. We don’t think they’re doing a good job."

Mr Cowen added: "They’d be gone if it wasn’t for Brexit."

Mr Donnelly said Fianna Fáil’s focus now is reducing the costs of the NCH.

"We’ve a very small window of opportunity to get these costs back down. As you know were we to table a motion of no confidence in Simon Harris that would trigger a general election.

"The one thing that would guarantee is Ireland has no government for the next three or four months."

He said the NCH construction would continue and "any opportunity to bring these costs back down would be immediately lost".

"Our focus at the moment is not on playing party politics.

"It’s on getting the hospital built for a decent price, getting these costs back down again so that we can deploy that money around the country to other capital projects."

More to follow

Online Editors