Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media was asked these questions yesterday. As she rightly stated, what we decided at Cabinet on Tuesday is that it would be very good for us to have this debate in order to have full scrutiny and transparency with all the legal documents because people on all sides and from various different parties are concerned. It was right and appropriate for us to make the decision that the Minister for Health would go before the Joint Committee on Health and answer every question in order that every possible angle of this matter might be examined. I fully agree with the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in this regard.

There are very different medical views on this matter. The Deputy quoted one medic versus another. The vast majority of medics and the wider public recognise that the existing situation in the National Maternity Hospital, as good as that facility is in terms of medical care, is intolerable and that we cannot delay. The Master of the hospital attended our parliamentary party meeting yesterday and said that even if we went out and commenced work tomorrow, it would be 2030 before we would see a new hospital in operation at St. Vincent's. Any further delay that would put matters back five, ten or whatever number of years, as we started to look at alternative options, would give rise to real controversy.

My view is that the legal documentation and the various structures show that there will be no religious interference, which was one of the main concerns I have heard over the years in respect of this matter. This is clear and transparent. A good article in The Irish Timestoday states that legal experts think that if religious interference were allowed, those responsible would rightly be accused of medical negligence. There are legal structures in place to give reassurance in that regard.

The issue of how this hospital will operate is a much wider in nature and relates to our voluntary health and voluntary hospital systems. All three maternity hospitals in Dublin are voluntary hospitals, with structures that in some cases go back over 200 years. There is a debate separate to the religious issue as to whether we should engage in compulsory purchase of those hospitals and move away from a voluntary hospital system. There is an argument to be made in that regard, but it has not formed part of the debate to date. Another article in today's edition of the Irish Independentrefers to the fact that the voluntary hospitals are the ones that are currently providing the full range of services, whereas not all public HSE-run hospitals do. This is a complex and difficult issue in terms of the strengths and benefits of voluntary hospitals versus HSE-run hospitals. Our voluntary health system has real benefits

My view is that the national maternity strategy should be central to this because it provides the guiding direction. The strategy gives me real reassurance and we need to apply it because it recognises that even with the voluntary hospitals, hospital group CEOs will ultimately be accountable to the national director of acute hospitals for all services delivered within the maternity network. That is an important point. This is where the actual direction comes from. What is that direction? It is for a woman-centred system that is midwife-led rather than consultant-led, with much more care in the community. This is what we need to focus on delivering at St. Vincent's, Holles Street, the Rotunda, the Coombe, Limerick and every other maternity hospital. That is the guide as to where we should go and how services should be developed and delivered.

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