Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Amendment No. 3 in my name and that of my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, states:

In page 4, lines 29 to 31, to delete all words from and including "may" in line 29 down to and including "section" in line 31 and substitute the following:

"may not dispose of any land (including buildings) vested in it by this section and must continue to use the land (including buildings) vested in it by this section for medical purposes related to the treatment of cancer in public patients in a manner and form determined by the Executive with the consent of the Minister".

To translate that into vernacular English, we want to hold on to St. Luke's as a centre of cancer excellence; we do not want it to be sold. If the Minister wants to sell it, she or her successor will have to bring such a proposal back to this House and make a persuasive case for it. It is pretty simple.

The Minister of State is not the senior Minister responsible and therefore he is not accountable for undertakings given by the Minister verbally in the Chamber. Any verbal undertaken given by any Minister in any Administration is not worth the paper it is not written on. For the Government to suggest, with the arrogance that only a tired Administration can command faced with an election in 2012, that it will not implement a decision in 2014 makes Robert Mugabe look like a reluctant tyrant. Let us be realistic. This Administration will not form the next Government, according to all the opinion polls. To suggest instinctively, that I as Minister or that Deputy Harney as Minister would give a verbal undertaking that the Government would not be disposed to do as we seek indicates the reason for the Government parties' rankings in the polls and why the Minister's party has disappeared.

I attended the opening of Lios na nÓg, a Gaelscoil in Cullenswood House last Monday. I persuaded the Minister of State's colleague, Deputy Treacy, when he was junior Minister with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, in 1987, after much argument and persuasion, not to proceed with the firesale of Cullenswood House. As the Minister of State may recall it was the birthplace of Scoil Éanna, the birthplace of the Gaelscoil movement and the birthplace of the school that Pádraic Pearse established in Oakley Road for the teaching of young people through the medium of Irish in the early part of the 20th century. The then Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, listened to the arguments I put to him, namely, that this was a dilapidated building in poor condition. The Office of Public Works then faced similar economic constraints and firesale conditions, although the conditions were not as bad as those now faced by the Minister of State's Department and the Government. I advised the then Minister of State that the building was a building site and that little or no money would be secured from its firesale and that it would become an apartment block of anonymity and privacy. He was persuaded by my argument. Through a long process of preservation, consultation and gestation, having regard to the original purpose for which the building was preserved or held on to by the Cullenswood House committee, the building was transposed into the provision of a new Lios na nÓg school beside Scoil Bhríde, which was one of the original Gaelscoileanna in this country. President McAleese had the honour of opening that school less than ten days ago. If the then Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, had not had that courage, which I hope the Minister of State possesses, we would not have had that celebration less than ten days ago. This building would probably become an anonymous, badly built, speculatively constructed, apartment block, something of which Ranelagh does not need more.

We have been told nothing will happen for another four years, until 2014. The property market will probably have recovered in part by then but our economic circumstances will remain difficult. The temptation to sell off this property in Dublin 6, as my constituency colleague, Deputy Lucinda Creighton, will concur, will be strong. If it were to be sold off and the proceeds transferred to the Health Service Executive which would then provide an equivalent facility of the same quality in another location, I would be somewhat open minded though still not persuaded. However, the idea of handing over that haven of calm, as one speaker described it on Second Stage, to the chaos of the HSE is beyond belief.

The Minister of State's party will not be in government in four years' time. He must not allow this facility to become the bureaucratic entitlement of the Department of Health and Children or the HSE, which is accountable to nobody. In the case of the Department, we can at least see our public servants in the Chamber today. Under the old system, some of us were members of health boards, possibly including the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney. However, the HSE is like the KGB, with public representatives never seeing or meeting with its officials. They do not answer our questions and are entirely unaccountable.

If this legislation is passed in its current form, St. Luke's Hospital is gone. If the Minister of State does not accept the Labour Party amendment, this vital facility is doomed. Can he name another hospital anywhere in the country that could evoke the same degree of emotion, sympathy and support which the Friends of St. Luke's Hospital have been able to mobilise? It is not simply a question of a feel good factor, as many mothers of children born in certain maternity facilities feel good about the process of having given birth there. We are talking about something much more substantial. We are talking about people who went through a journey which they may or may not have survived. They and their families attribute their survival, or the calm acceptance of the alternative outcome, as being greatly assisted by the calm environment of St. Luke's Hospital. Yet the Minister is going to substitute it for St. James's Hospital. We are going to transpose St. Luke's Hospital and everything that surrounds it into the facility off St. Stephen's Street. Who is in charge here?

Once state-of-the-start medical practice has measured and identified what is wrong with an individual patient - Deputy Reilly is more familiar than I with what is involved in that - the course of therapy is outside the narrow confines of measured medical interventions. There are other factors that cannot be measured but which contribute to the recovery or palliative care of patients. Just because we cannot measure them does not mean they do not exist. That immeasurable quality exists in St. Luke's Hospital, yet the Minister of State is going to let the HSE flog off the facility even though his party will not even be in government when it happens. The Minister of State will regret, when he is in opposition in four years' time, that he did not have the courage to say he did not agree with the permanent officials of the Department of Health and Children or the monster that is the HSE. A future Minister will have to come into this Chamber in 2014, stand where the Minister of State is standing today and persuade the House that it is a good idea. It is certainly not a good idea in 2010. Why is the Minister of State ceding to people in the HSE - people who never have to face election or accountability of any kind - the power to destruct a facility that has won the hearts and affections of hundreds of people throughout the State? For whom and for what is that being done? It is mind blowing.

We have not made a success of the reorganisation of our health services; everybody in the House would agree with that. There is much work to be done. I am advised by people who know far more than I about the mechanics and science of medicine that national centres of excellence and the centralisation of cancer services is the best way forward. I do not dispute that, but the reality is that we do not know everything. What we do know, however, is that St. Luke's Hospital works. Why impose a death certificate on this cancer treatment facility, which is what the Bill will do if our amendment is not accepted? It is a death certificate with a time stop of four years.

I have collected four boxes of petitions, which will be delivered to the Minister's office, from people throughout the country. Deputy Creighton will concur that this is not simply a constituency issue. St. Luke's Hospital is a national institution which happens to be located in the constituency of Dublin South-East, and the vast majority of the people who have petitioned me and Deputy Creighton do not live in the constituency. This is not parish pump politics; it is a question of national solidarity with an institution that works and whose existence has evoked an extraordinary loyalty. Yet the Minister of State wants to destroy it. I urge him to accept our amendment. If necessary, the Minister, Deputy Harney, can introduce the change in the Seanad. I ask the Minister of State to do a "Noel Treacy" on this and save St. Luke's Hospital.

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