Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Today is the third anniversary of the historic vote to repeal the eighth amendment. That huge pro-woman, pro-civil rights vote was a vote for choice and an end to hypocritical Irish solutions to Irish problems. There are many outstanding issues with the subsequent legislation, including the fact that only one in ten GPs and only half the maternity hospitals are providing for abortion while at least one pregnant person a day is still being forced to travel.

However, the key outstanding issue is who will own the new national maternity hospital and whether it will provide full abortion services. Some €500 million of taxpayers' money is being spent on our new national maternity hospital. The hospital should be 100% State-owned and abortion services should be provided there in full. However, the 2020 annual general meeting, AGM, of the current National Maternity Hospital was informed by its legal team that something very different was on the table. What was being looked at was for the State to gift the hospital to the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group and then to lease it for 99 years, and, along with the National Maternity Hospital medical team, the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group medical team would be granted a licence to work at the hospital.

The St. Vincent's Healthcare Group is the late successor organisation of the nuns of the Religious Sisters of Charity. They are obliged to uphold the values and vision of the founder of the Sisters of Charity, Mary Aikenhead, in other words to uphold Roman Catholic doctrine.

The former master of the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dr. Peter Boylan, put it very well in 2017. He said:

To believe that the new National Maternity Hospital will be the only hospital in the world owned by a Catholic congregation to permit sterilisation, IVF, abortion, gender reassignment surgery, and any other procedures prohibited by the Church is naive and delusional ... That approximately €300 million of public money will be spent on such a project is a scandal.

His words require only two updates. The €300 million should now read €500 million, and the same points would apply to the lay successor organisation.

In 2012, Savita Halappanavar died a preventable death in a church-run hospital and in 2018 the people voted for decisive change. The fact that the Government of which the Minister is a part has not ruled out an arrangement for our new national maternity hospital that involves less than 100% State ownership, with medical procedures 100% decided by the State's representatives, is indeed a scandal. I have two questions for the Minister. First, will he take this opportunity to guarantee to the House that the new national maternity hospital will be 100% State-owned? Second, will he also guarantee that abortion services will be fully available to women at the new national maternity hospital?

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