The Government has approved the new National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park, Dublin, to proceed to construction on a €1.861bn budget excluding VAT, clearing the HSE to award contracts within weeks on what is described as the largest capital investment in women’s healthcare in the State’s history.

The Health Service Executive is the contracting authority and will appoint John Sisk & Son, Ireland’s largest construction and civil engineering group, as main contractor and Designer Group, a Dublin-headquartered mechanical and electrical contractor founded in 1992 with more than 1,000 staff, as reserved specialist contractor.

The seven-storey hospital will exceed 54,000m2, offer 244 single en-suite beds, five operating theatres and 24 birthing rooms, and have capacity for 10,000 births a year, with direct links to St Vincent’s adult critical care.

The National Maternity Hospital, currently at Holles Street, delivered more than 7,000 babies in 2025 and will continue to operate there during construction.

A pre-construction services agreement was signed with both contractors in October 2025, main construction begins in early 2027 and completion is targeted for 2033.

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the budget reflects a high-confidence funding requirement that includes quantified project risks, inflation provisions and contingency allowances, and that the collaborative procurement approach has built a strong foundation for delivery.

The approved budget is €1.861bn excluding VAT; individual contract values for Sisk and Designer Group were not stated.

The headline number is the story: the HSE projected €296m in 2017 and the Department of Health about €800m including commissioning in 2021, before tenders came in near €1.5bn in 2025 with builders reported to include about €500m of contingency.

Budget risk is explicit in the approval: the €1.861bn figure incorporates quantified risks, inflation and contingency, which signals the State is pricing uncertainty up front on a programme that runs to 2033.

Designer Group’s 2025 turnover was €275m, down from €310m in 2024, which puts the scale of its reserved mechanical and electrical role in context.

For the sector, early contractor involvement through a pre-construction services agreement, followed by a budget set with explicit risk and inflation provisions, is a delivery model that favours contractors with proven experience in complex hospital work.

Source: Irish Building Magazine / The Irish Times / Irish Construction News