Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy very much for the questions. On the issue of termination, the situation is, as we will all appreciate, that terminations, by and large, will happen in the maternity units themselves. I take the Deputy’s point and that she was raising it by way of background, that there is a very uneven spread of terminations throughout the country. This is one of the things we will be looking very closely at in the review of the Act which we will be getting under way very shortly. This will be for another day.

The point I was trying to make, and my apologies if I was making it badly earlier, is that all procedures are permitted at St Vincent’s University Hospital and the hospital has confirmed that. In the case of a termination, a woman may have one performed at St. Vincent’s if, for example, she were severely ill. In the normal course of events these procedures are provided at maternity hospitals. What I was saying that the information provided under the legislation does not specify the locations but I will endeavour to provide for the joint committee the information that has been requested.

On the question that the Deputy has asked on the ownership of the land, it is my stated preference that the State would own the land and I have raised this directly with the stakeholders. It is important to say, however, that regardless of whether the State owns the land, what we have to focus on to ensure clinical and operational independence, which I believe we all want, is not who owns the land but the governance structures and independence through the hospital itself. The ownership of the land matters to people. I said it is my preference and indeed that of the Government that the people would own the land, but it is not the solution to clinical and operational independence which is around governance, board members, reserved powers and things like that.