Dr. Rhona Mahony:

It is central to our debate. The first point is that the operation of the hospital is transferring from its charter to a new company, NMH Designated Activity Company, DAC, which is an independent legal entity. That provides protection of itself because company law means that the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group will, from the outset, have very limited scope to interfere. On top of that, as the Minister has said, the next really important piece is the constitution of the DAC, which is really and truly enshrining all of the values and principles that we considered so important, when we were designing this, to protect women. The principle, which is now enshrined in the legal framework, is that the hospital will have clinical, financial and operational independence and without getting too legal, we will be able to provide all legally permissible services without religious ethos or other distinction.

The next layer, and the really big piece, is the reserved powers which cover the independent operation of the hospital. They are exercised independently by the directors and any service that is legally permissible is available. We also have the Minister's direction to ensure that those reserve powers are exercised. People keep saying that this hospital is a 100% subsidiary but it actually has a really special share, called a golden share. That golden share is held by the Minister and it has very special powers. It protects the inviolability of the reserve powers and ensures that the director's obligations are provided for.

The next layer is the board of directors. We have heard a lot of comment about directors and some suggestions that directors coming from St. Vincent's would act against the interests of women's health. That is very egregious. When one is a director of a company or hospital, one takes it very seriously. One has a fiduciary duty to ensure that everything one does is for the benefit of the patients one is serving. When one is on a board - and I am on a board - everything one does has got to be to the benefit of the patients one serves. It is wrong to suggest that directors would break their fiduciary duty when we do not even know who they are yet. That is very unfair.

The operating licence from the HSE is another layer which gives us freedom and independence to protect. Then we have an ownership lease, which is giving us 299 years on the site, and we have a board and the mastership system. These are all the layers and that is even before I get to explaining that there is no religious ethos at St. Vincent's. St. Vincent's is now a secular hospital under the current board. Again, people are saying that the current board is some kind of proxy for the religious but this is the very board that spent the last number of years separating the hospital from the church because it wants to emerge into the future as a hospital whose only ethos is delivering the best national and international practice of care for the patients it serves. This is the very board that has removed a religious ethos.