It was meant to be a symbol of how far Ireland had come - a world-class national children's hospital that would finally honour the promise of the nation's founders to cherish all its children equally. Instead, it became a cautionary tale of ambition gone awry.

In Billion Dollar Baby, award-winning journalist Paul Cullen delivers the definitive account of Ireland's most expensive and controversial public project to date. From its conception in the 1990s to its still-delayed opening more than three decades later, Cullen exposes the tangled web of political interference, medical rivalries, flawed planning and spiralling costs that turned its construction from a €650 million vision into a near-€3 billion behemoth. With insider access and forensic detail, he explores how vested interests derailed progress, how tendering missteps and design issues inflated the budget, and how secrecy and inertia kept the project alive long after common sense had fled.

Billion Dollar Baby is a landmark investigation into the politics of healthcare, the cost of delay, and the price of promises unkept.