Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

All I can do is repeat the position, which is that when I bring the final structure to the Government for approval, it will have multiple layers of protection in place. The Religious Sisters of Charity will have no hand, act, part, role, influence, board membership or anything else in the new structure. That is simply not going to happen.

The Deputy is correct. There is genuine concern out there. I have spent time talking to the midwives and the doctors in the National Maternity Hospital. These are the women and the men who are treating mums and babies and they are really concerned about what they have described as a campaign of misinformation. It is their lawyers who are writing the contracts and, ultimately, we need to listen carefully to the midwives and the doctors. What they are telling us is that they are absolutely satisfied that the new structures give them all of the independence that they need. They have written publicly on several occasions to ask those who are running what not I but the midwives and the doctors are calling a campaign of misinformation to stop for the reasons the Deputy has outlined.

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