Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion

Mr. Ciar?n Devane:

I am quite comfortable we had a really robust process over the past 12 months or so where we were challenging a number of things.

Collectively as a board we were very happy that things moved on with regard to strengthening the constitution, in making sure the documentation was coherent, in addressing some of the issues we had around forfeiture, and so on. I am very comfortable that we had a robust debate and that some of the real issues, which are understandable issues, were discussed around making sure that we put in sufficient protections to address this issue of trust, which we have been talking about this morning. I think that is okay. It is good now. The board, collectively, did not share that view with those two colleagues. Equally, we respect their right to have those opinions. As a board we were saying that we have sufficient protections, that things have moved on hugely over the last 12 months, that the excitement of having these extra services and greater capacity for reducing the risk, for example at 4 a.m. if something is going wrong, that all of those things remain true, and that we have a much quicker, stronger and coherent set of legal principles now then we even did 12 months ago. I am very comfortable that the governance process, which is the HSE board, did a really good job on this.

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