Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. It is an issue in which I have a real, personal interest. The national maternity strategy, which was produced when I was Minister for Health, provides for us to co-locate all our maternity hospitals adjacent to or on the campus of adult hospitals. This is the best way to provide modern maternity care. If a pregnancy goes wrong, all the adult services a mother needs, for example, an intensive care unit, vascular surgeons and cardiologists, will be available if she needs their specialist input. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence, but it does happen. This is why it makes sense to co-locate all our maternity hospitals on the sites of adult hospitals, just as we have done in Cork, for example, and as is the case in Galway.

If we were to start from scratch, we would perhaps do things differently, as is often the case. We would find or purchase a site and build on it a new adult and maternity hospital and defund, close down or abandon those sites currently owned by voluntary hospitals. However, that is not a practical solution. What we have are two voluntary hospitals with existing staff and an existing legal structure, namely, Holles Street and St. Vincent's. We are looking to bring Holles Street onto the site of St. Vincent's and, to the extent necessary, integrate the two hospitals.

It is important we get the governance right, and I am with the Deputy on that. We are working towards a solution whereby the hospital will be owned by the State; the State will control the land on which the hospital is built; the staff will be public servants; the ethos will ensure that any procedure which is legal in this State, including abortion, in vitro fertilisation and tubal ligation, will be available; and the laws that apply in the hospital will be those enacted by this Oireachtas, not Canon Law.

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