Dr. Peter Boylan:

The constitution states that the directors have the power to merge, mortgage, sell and so on. The example I picked was the Bon Secours, which has six or seven hospitals in Ireland. It has a huge Catholic-based healthcare organisation in the United States. In that country there are many Catholic healthcare organisations with many hospitals and they are always looking to expand, merge and acquire other healthcare organisations. St. Vincent's Healthcare Group will have an adult hospital, a maternity hospital, a private hospital and St. Michael's, perhaps, as an elective hospital. It is a valuable asset and if the directors have the power to merge, what is to say they will not merge with an American Catholic healthcare organisation?

There are many of them and they are enormously wealthy. The constitutions do not protect against that.