Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. Like her, I have been always interested in this project and I have always had concerns about it. What prompted me, quite frankly, was a straight question from Deputy Bríd Smith. I would not have answered that question had I not been asked it. As the Deputy pointed out in her remarks, it might have been two or three years since I was last asked publicly or in this House to give my views on the new national maternity hospital project. I am conscious that negotiations have been under way during that period, and I have been restrained in what I have said.

Regarding the position of the Government, this Government and, indeed, the previous Government which I led, it has always been one that has favoured co-location over integration, that has insisted that the new hospital, like the existing one, must be clinically and operationally independent and that any gynaecological or obstetrical procedure which is lawful in this State must be provided for in this hospital. We want to own the hospital and, ideally, to own the land as well. We also want proper representation on the board, and the governance aspect is as important as the ownership of the land, if not more so. That is my position and it has not changed.

For the record, in 2017 and 2018, two memos for information were brought to Government. I checked this with the Cabinet secretariat. No memo for decision was brought to Government, and no memo decision has yet been brought to Government. Therefore, a Government decision on the lease and on the governance aspect has yet to be made. It was not made by the previous Government and it has not yet been made by this Government. Had it been made back in 2017 or 2018, I assume the project would have gone to tender by now. However, it did not. I reiterate that two memos for information went to Government and no memo for decision, and that still has not happened. We are where we are in that regard.

The Government is committed to the development of this hospital. It is planned for the St. Vincent’s University Hospital campus at Elm Park, and that is set out in the programme for Government. We have not given examination to alternative sites. What we must do now is to conclude the governance arrangements necessary to ensure protection of this public investment for the public good and, in particular, to ensure there is an absolute, legally binding assurance that all legally permissible obstetrical and gynaecological services will be provided in the new hospital as they are currently in Holles Street.

There is universal agreement in this House that this must be done.

The project is unprecedented and inherently complex because it involves relocating one voluntary hospital onto the campus of another, neither of which hospital the State owns or controls at present. What is different now is that the State is going to invest hundreds of millions of euro in a new building on that campus, which changes things in my view and in the view of the Government. We have clear legal advice that the draft legal framework ensures that all legally permissible medical services will be provided in the new hospital and we are having that double checked at present.

On the 99 year lease, the Government was not satisfied with that which is why negotiations continued and why the idea of a further 50-year extension was proposed. That matter is far from concluded.

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