Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Twenty-four hours is a long time in politics. Yesterday, when I raised this issue with the Taoiseach in respect of solutions, he told me to get real regarding CPOing this land. I am telling him now that the people of Ireland want him to get real. The Government cannot proceed as currently constructed. The statement yesterday by St. Vincent's Healthcare Group was a two-fingers to the Taoiseach, the Minister, me, everyone in the Chamber and the Irish people. The Taoiseach now needs to get real. I do not blame him for this mess; he inherited it.

I have gone through the documents. My colleague Senator Bacik requested them under freedom of information, which is probably why some of them were released. I know the history of this; I have been chasing it for years. We need a solution here. The Taoiseach needs to listen to the Minister of State at the Department of Health who said yesterday when she saw the statement going out, "The letters C, P and O come to mind". I understand the timeframes and the issues in that regard. I also understand that what the programme for Government states is weak. It talks about concluding governance arrangements but not about the hospital being publicly owned on public land.

I do want to have a big argy-bargy argument with the Taoiseach on this. I just want to point out that he is in a very weak position. St. Vincent's Healthcare Group is pushing its weight around and trying to push the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, into a corner. They need to fight back on behalf of the Irish people. This is a seismic moment. We are at a crossroads. It is a seismic moment for the people, and the State and the Government need to stand up to bullies. The Government needs leverage and support, and it will have our support.

The Taoiseach stated earlier that the State has put significant investment in St. Vincent's Hospital over the years. He is right; I could not agree more. The leverage the Government needs is that, if the group is not willing to gift the land to the State, which it can do without all the connotations of Canon Law it is trying to delineate, we should CPO the entire site. Who paid for it in the first instance? As the Taoiseach said earlier, it was the taxpayer. In a spirit of co-operation and conceding that he inherited this, I ask the Taoiseach whether, given where we are today and the statement yesterday, we should not just CPO the entire site - public, private, maternity - and create one fantastic campus owned by the State, on land owned by the State and run by the State.

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