Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the past year, we have had three Private Members' motions on this matter, and now this evening's debate, and nothing seems to have moved forward. We are waiting on a legal framework when, fundamentally, the decision not to build and invest what may ultimately be close to €1 billion on a much-needed national maternity hospital on public land has led to where we are now. I agree with Deputy Cullinane that we need to see this legal framework. I would like to know what the timeline of that legal framework will be. I have grave concerns about that. At this stage, I am not sure anyone will be satisfied with the contents of that legal framework, such is the level of valid concern. The Minister himself has said people on this side of the House have valid concerns. I would rather be welcoming a national maternity hospital and maybe debating spiralling costs or something like that. We do not want to be having these debates. We do not want to bring forward three Private Members' motions.

Deputy O'Reilly spoke about Sheila Hodgers. That one case crystallises why there is such a chilling generational impact and why these concerns are valid. It is because of cases like hers.

Unfortunately, what the Minister read out this evening is nothing new. We need a timeline for when this legal framework will be published. I want a commitment that it will come before a committee and that it will be discussed in the Dáil. The spectre and legacy of Catholic influence on our education system and every other part of society, but particularly on our health system, is such that in a modern, post-repeal Ireland, with all the strides we have made, when we have hundreds of millions of euro and many options on the table, we are going to enter into an agreement with a Catholic institution. Whatever that agreement may be and whatever safeguards or legal framework is in place, there will always be concerns that that institution, through some mechanism or lay company, however it is constructed, will have an influence. As I said in a previous contribution on this matter, we have so far not even received any guarantees there will not be religious iconography on the walls, never mind religious influence on the clinical practice.

I understand the concerns of the clinicians in the current National Maternity Hospital, who desperately want a much-needed modern building in which to work. As someone who has been a birthing partner in the National Maternity Hospital, I have seen its limitations. I have seen the limitations on the great care that is given there due to the sheer fact the building is no longer fit for purpose. No one is arguing with the decision to co-locate. That is the way it should be done and that is the way we need to go. However, the Government and the previous Government have made a massive rod for their own backs here. None of this concern is contrived or false. Anyone speaking on this issue or any other issues relating to women's health would much rather be focusing on other issues such as the speed of delivery and not clinical governance. Unfortunately, we are where we are and it is quite a depressing and grim space. I hope the Minister will be able to give some clarity on when this legal framework will be published. It is to be hoped it will provide some kind of comfort but, unfortunately, I am not sure it will.

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