Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

In the few minutes I have available to me I want to again raise the issue of the long promised and much needed national maternity hospital to replace Holles Street hospital. This facility has been promised for some time. In 2012, the then Minister for Health, now Senator James Reilly, announced the move to the campus at St. Vincent's. At that stage, it seemed that none of the detail had been worked out. It was a political announcement and very much seen as such. We waited some time to get further detail on it. Approximately two years ago, the issue came to the fore again and concern was raised because it was not clear how a very valuable asset, estimated to cost approximately €350 million, could be developed on the grounds of what was essentially a private campus owned by St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. When this information became publicly known there was an outcry about it. The idea of the State handing over such a valuable asset to private interests was abhorrent to most people and there was considerable controversy about it at the time.

The other issue that was raised on several occasions was the question of the ethos that would govern the new national maternity hospital. There was a lot of concern expressed about the proposals to establish a board which would, in effect, give controlling interest to St. Vincent's Healthcare Group, which is a denominational organisation. Most people felt that it would be entirely inappropriate for a religious body to have control of a national maternity hospital because of all of the implications of that in terms of the type of services that would be provided and also because of the record of St. Vincent's Healthcare Group in respect of it being governed by a Catholic ethos and the level and type of services being provided being constrained as a result of that. Most people were strongly of the view that it would unacceptable that this situation would apply in regard to a new national maternity hospital and that there would be any question of the services that are legally available in this State not being available in a new national maternity hospital. This issue came to the fore and there was considerable controversy around it. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, battled this and set up different groups to examine it and looked to different ways of squaring that circle but he never really came to a conclusion about it.

On the eve of Christmas six months ago, the Minister made an announcement that agreement in principle had been reached with St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. The nuns were to be withdrawn from the board, a new company was to be established and a new management company was to be established in regard to the new national maternity hospital. It has been six months since the Minister offered the steadfast assurances that the investment of the State in the new national maternity hospital would be protected and its clinical and operational independence guaranteed. Last December, in an eve of Christmas announcement the Minister approved the contract for the first phase of construction at the hospital site to proceed. He told us then that agreement in principle had been reached with St. Vincent's Healthcare Group to allow the State to retain ownership of the new facility through a 99 year lease.

We were also informed that a suite of legal documents to give effect to this agreement would be finalised in the new year. We are now halfway through the year and we are still none the wiser as to the legal arrangements for the ownership and control of the hospital, the project relating to which the State is funding to the tune of €350 million. The Minister has repeatedly stated that he is confident that the new hospital will be clinically and operationally independent. It is impossible to see how that can be the case. We know that all kinds of approvals are required from the Vatican for that to happen and that none of those approaches have been made yet. I do not believe the Minister. I do not believe that this can happen in a way that is acceptable to the public. The Minister needs to come clean on the matter.

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