Dr. Rhona Mahony:

Absolutely. We have to come back a little bit to the history of the Mulvey agreement because the nuns have gone now, they are out of the picture, but in 2016 they were not. We knew they might be leaving, but we had to create an entity where it did not matter whether the nuns left or not. We had to create an entity where we had absolute independence in our company. That is why we have all the layers. In the initial mediations we were going to be a branch and being a branch does not give you the same protections as being your own separate legal entity, your own separate company. We had seen from our colleagues in HSE hospitals where maternity services are departments in large acute adult hospitals that there is almost competition for the funding within the hospital and there are different interests in the hospital such as cancer, anaesthetics and all the different specialties. Very often, it seemed that maternity services were right at the end of the list. We wanted our own separate funding as well because when you run a hospital, you need to have control of the building, staff and clinical operations, but you also need to have your own separate funding. In order for us to achieve that, we had to have a separate legal entity. We went on a bit of a journey during the Mulvey negotiation. Two mediations had fallen apart because we were in a branch situation. We could not accept that because we felt it would not give the right governance structure to provide a dedicated healthcare facility for women. During the Mulvey talks, both St. Vincent's and Holles Street went on a journey, and we had to understand that it is all about patients. What we are trying to do here is to create an amazing campus that provides care for women, but also care for adults, one that will elevate Irish healthcare and provide care from birth - from a tiny baby born at 23 weeks weighing 500 g - right up to the end of life. All the research facilities and collaboration between the two hospitals and the doctors is what is at stake here. When we look at all the successful academic health centres in the world such as Imperial Hospital and John Radcliffe Hospital, there is a list of the top 10, and we want to be one of them. That is what this is about. We are ambitious for women's healthcare. We want this hospital to be listed in the top 10.