Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I begin by bringing into the Chamber the words of the American poet, feminist and lesbian activist, Adrienne Rich, who said, "Every built thing has its unmeant purpose."

It should be a source of celebration the Irish State and people should be getting a modern maternity hospital, free of Nightingale wards and with single-room occupancy. The fact hundreds of millions of euro will be spent to provide the highest standard of healthcare should be a cause of celebration in a modern republic. Yet the dark clouds of an old Ireland once again start to gather because we will not own that hospital. We will not own the site on which it is built. Rather, the hospital will be owned by the St. Vincent's Hospital Group which has been set up by the Religious Sisters of Charity whose legacy is clear in my constituency of Dublin Central. One can walk up the road from the Convention Centre to Seán McDermott Street and see a big building in which they once incarcerated women who committed no crime. That is the legacy of the Religious Sisters of Charity I see when I walk through my constituency.

Those same people want us to believe their control of that hospital will be benign, they will have a hands-off approach for 99 years and they will not get involved or dictate in any manner. They have provided assurances in which I have no faith. The people of this country who have suffered at the hands of such organisations have no faith in their assurances. That is why we are bringing forward this motion that our new national maternity hospital should be publicly owned, on public lands and provide the highest standard of healthcare to women and people in this country, without any risk of ethos interfering in the treatment they would be given at any point in the future.

We need this hospital so badly. The people of this country need our maternity hospital so badly. That fact has been weaponised. Every built thing has its unmeant purpose. For the St. Vincent's Hospital Group, the Religious Sisters of Charity or the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, in terms of who one has to answer to, the unmeant purpose is clear. It is about control. It is about the long game of Catholic control, which it will not concede in this country. It is the dark shadow it will not unclench its grip from.

That is not a demonisation of people of the Catholic faith in this country. Let me be very clear, the people of the Catholic faith in this country suffered more at the hands of the hierarchy than anybody else. A lease of 99 years is nothing to an organisation which has existed for thousands of years. There is a battle for our new national maternity hospital, one which strikes to the very heart of what it means to live in a modern, secular republic. We have fought too hard to concede an inch here.

Like many people of my generation, I knocked on doors with women who had to outline their stories, hurt and grievances just to get access to basic healthcare. Before that, I knocked on doors with people from the LGBT community who were asking to be able to marry the people they loved. When we did that, we stood on the shoulders of people who came before us and suffered a substantial oppression and showed courage beyond what they should have to, in terms of contraceptive trains and those who were incarcerated in Magdalen laundries, suffered the horrors of the asylums and were kept in mother and baby homes.

Those legacies are still there. That pain is still there and we will not concede. Do we honestly believe, given half the chance, the hierarchy of the church would not do exactly the same thing again? To those naive enough to believe that, I point them in the direction of Poland, or even closer to home, our schools. Deputies talked about it being a cold place for those of the Catholic faith in this country, but if one goes into any school or class in this country one in five teachers of the LGBT community cannot profess the manner in which he or she loves, for fear it would prohibit his or her career advancement. This has been a cold, dark place for people in the LGBT community and that ethos still exists in our schools. I will not be fooled into believing it will not exist in our hospitals, given half the chance. We stand wholly against it.

I ask the Minister to demonstrate the courage expected. When he walks into the room with the Religious Sisters of Charity, he should not be deferential. We owe them absolutely nothing. Nothing. The history of this country is 90 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael conceding ownership of the basic public amenities of healthcare and education to the church. We will stand for that no more. When the Minister walks into that room, he should not be deferential. He should remember who is talking to and the legacy of hurt, pain and trauma which they have inflicted and which is still being inflicted on and experienced by people in this country today.

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