Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Having heard the Minister's comments, I am more concerned now. I am particularly concerned about what the Minister said about the nuns not having any more involvement and that he is taking some assurance from that. We have been saying for some time that one of the key issues here is the company that has been set up by the nuns, with their ethos and values, and the role that company will play. It has been a key concern raised by people. I refer not to the nuns withdrawing, but to the manner in which they are withdrawing and in the manner in which they are carrying out that handover to reflect their values and ethos. We have been raising that key concern and the Minister has not addressed it. In fact, he seems to take assurance from the very point we are raising as a key concern.

This is not, or at least it should not be, complicated. This is about ensuring that we own the national maternity hospital that we will pay for as taxpayers. That is what the outcome of this process should be. There should be full public control and ownership and there should be no questions or ambiguity in that regard. If we are to remove all doubt, we must insist on full public ownership. Then we will not have the complex arrangements to which the Minister referred, with the hope that the result will be unambiguous in how the hospital is run. Let us remove all doubt from the situation and ensure full public ownership, with no complex arrangements giving rise to concerns. In that way, we can draw a line in the sand on this.

The fundamental, core question is whether we are content to continue to outsource healthcare to private entities or whether we insist, once and for all, that hospitals built with State funds should be in full public ownership and under full public control. There could not be a more important question for us to answer in healthcare. Why are we in a situation where the State would even contemplate settling for an arrangement involving anything less than full ownership? How are we in that situation? How can the Government even think about spending in the region of €800 million of our money on the national maternity hospital without having full public ownership and control?

This is about who runs the State and for whom the State is run. Is it run to ameliorate private interests or in the interests of the public? As Deputies Shortall and Cairns said earlier, this is not an issue that has just arisen since 2013. It is an issue that has been with us over the past 100 years, since the foundation of the State. We saw it starkly in the 1950s with the mother and child scheme that Deputy Noel Browne tried to progress, a scheme was all about improving maternity services and healthcare. It is incredible that 70 years later we are still having discussions in the Dáil about private interests and the role they play in shaping the way publicly-funded healthcare is delivered.

Now is clearly the time for this Dáil to catch up with the public in this area. People came out in their thousands during the grassroots campaigns on repealing the eighth amendment, marriage equality and on other campaigns to say clearly that they no longer think it acceptable for this State, this republic, to function in that manner. This is not just about the national maternity hospital. It is about how all of our publicly-funded healthcare services are delivered. It is also about how our publicly-funded schools, some of which are owned and controlled by private entities, are run. It is fundamentally about the kind of republic and society we want. The practice of continuing to spend public money to provide healthcare, education and other public services while maintaining private ownership and control must end now.

See this speech in context