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

I am glad everyone in the House agrees with the principle of co-location, but saying one agrees with something and wanting or demanding something are very different from delivering it. As someone who has spent a good bit of time in government, I understand this more and more. We are not starting from scratch. We have the Coombe, the Rotunda and Holles Street, voluntary hospitals that have existed since before the foundation of the State. It is not a simple matter of closing them down, laying off the staff, getting rid of the board of the NMH, extinguishing its legal identity and setting up from scratch again somewhere else. We are moving existing hospitals to new sites. I have laid out to the Deputy what the Government is trying to achieve in these negotiations, which are still under way, namely, that the hospital will be owned by the State; the land on which it is located will be controlled by the State; the staff in the hospital will be public servants; the ethos will ensure that it is not a religious ethos; any procedure, including any women's health procedure, that is legal in this State will be provided in the hospital; and the laws that apply will be those enacted by this Oireachtas, not Canon Law.

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