Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste knows as well as I do that when one fights hard for something one does not give it up easily. The Tánaiste fought hard for the leadership of Fine Gael; he will not walk away from it. All my adult life I, and tens of thousands of women in this country, have fought very hard to be free from the shackles of the Catholic Church over our reproductive rights. We won that fight three years ago when we won the repeal referendum.

My question today is about the proposed new national maternity hospital. A recent statement from the Religious Sisters of Charity claimed they will have no involvement in the management of St. Vincent's Hospital Group, the new private charity named St. Vincent's Holdings, but this is technically incorrect. The nuns may no longer have any involvement in the day-to-day management of the hospital, but they may be able to appoint directors and are entitled to appoint the successors of the new holding company.

The Religious Sisters of Charity say they have gifted the St. Vincent's Hospital site to the people of Ireland.

I ask if the people of Ireland are obliged to accept a gift from nuns who were involved in the Magdalen laundries, in mother and baby homes and in running a hospital that refused to provide sterilisation, vasectomy or any reproductive rights to women and men. They can take their gift. If they want to give a gift of land for a new national maternity hospital, they should gift it to the State. The women of this country and those of us who fought so hard should not go forward with a new national maternity hospital that is still dominated by the ethos of the St. Vincent's group.

Recent statements by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and the Ministers, Deputies Stephen Donnelly and Eamon Ryan, say they intend to proceed with the Mulvey plan. That plan was welcomed by the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, in 2016. We should remind ourselves that predated repeal and repeal changed everything. Unless the Government is intent on trashing the outcome of the repeal campaign, a couple of questions need to be honestly and firmly answered. Even if those answers include a guarantee of full reproductive rights, including gender alignment, abortion and vasectomy, we still do not believe the nuns and we do not necessarily believe the Government because the facts speak for themselves. The constitutional make-up of the new St. Vincent's holding group still allows for the voluntary organisations in the publicly-funded healthcare premises to maintain their private Catholic ethos. I do not believe the nuns. I do not disrespect them by saying that but I have to believe people based on their history and the level of trust they have given to us.

Will the Tánaiste present the current draft of the legal framework to the Dáil for examination? Will he acknowledge that the Mulvey plan was made redundant by the repeal referendum and must be scrapped? Will he act to take the new maternity hospital into full public ownership?

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