Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I do. We must make sure we address all of these concerns comprehensively. We will have multiple safeguards in place. One safeguard will be the final agreements on the governance structure for the national maternity hospital, including the reserved powers. What the reserved powers essentially do is prohibit the board, if you like, from acting against the clinical and operational independence. They are very strong. We are taking a look at the public interest representatives on the board as well. That is one of the safeguards. I will only bring a recommendation to the committee, the Government and the Oireachtas if we have watertight guarantees around that.

Another safeguard is the National Maternity Hospital, NMH. We sometimes forget that we are not setting this hospital up from scratch. This hospital exists in Holles Street. It is highly regarded and it provides the full range of services. The people who work in Holles Street will move down the road and work in Elm Park. It will be the same people treating the same patients with clinical and operational independence.

I campaigned for repeal shoulder to shoulder with some of the people who work in the National Maternity Hospital. They would not tolerate a situation where simply moving from one building to another, albeit from an old building to a new building, would somehow stop them providing the services they provide today. They would never do it. We sometimes forget that. They raised their voice a few weeks ago when quite a large number of very senior clinicians wrote and said some of this debate perhaps misunderstands their clinical governance and that some of it is "misinforming the debate". Those are their words, not mine. Senator Hoey can be absolutely sure they would not sign up to an agreement that stopped them doing what they do today. She can also be sure the Government will not sign off on an agreement that would in any way stop that. It is full clinical and operational independence.