Mr. James Menton:

In 2017 we had correspondence with the then Secretary General of the Department of Health which followed a lot of engagement with the Department and its officials where we outlined four key principles that informed our decision-making in terms of our participation as a partner in this project. The board's decision-making frame from the very beginning, quite apart from 2017 - it goes back probably ten years - was four things. The first is there could be no impediment to the efficient and effective delivery of patient care and that in no way would the delivery of patient care on our campus be adversely affected; second was that our ability to develop our campus into the future would not be in any way impeded by the relocation of the maternity hospital to the Elm Park campus; third, that while we would be contributing other forms of consideration we would not be expected to make any financial contribution to the project cost; and fourth, we wanted an overarching system of clinical governance on the campus to ensure it was run to best international medical standards. From that we had a partnership from the beginning.

We engaged in the Mulvey mediation that gave rise to the Mulvey agreement. From our perspective, what we brought to this particular arrangement was a substantial site, access to an integrated care system by virtue of the fact the proposed hospital will be integrated with our university hospital, access to provide patients with not only the excellent medical care our partners in the NMH will bring when they relocate to the campus but access also to more than 250 of our consultant cohort and 50 specialties. All that combines to ensure patient care for women in Ireland comes into the 21st century on a seamless basis. Also, it was very important for obvious reasons that do not need to be stated that we evolved into a secular organisation free of any church influence or religious ethics, in the same way, ironically, that when Holles Street moves from its current constitutional framework to that of the NMH at Elm Park DAC, it will also leave behind any association with church influence in the form of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin being, or being entitled to be, the chairman of Holles Street. There is also other Catholic representation and former Catholic representation.