Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It would be helpful for us on this side if the questions were answered and with a little less heckling from the colleagues to the right of the Minister, Deputy Ryan. I am not one bit reassured. I welcome the pause, but I am deeply troubled that at the same time there is a pause that will allow the committee to look at it we have reports in The Irish Times, a newspaper of repute, telling us that the Government has no intention of changing any of the documents. It is as if the Government is seeking to calm the masses. I will look at the Minister's point on the existing hospital. The conditions are intolerable but I ask the Minister to please not use up the reply telling me that. On this side of the House, we have repeatedly called for the hospital to be co-located on a site owned by the public and run by the State. What is equally intolerable is the failure of the Minister, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health to deal with any of the issues we are raising today.

Deputy Shortall raised the issue of rent and the Minister conveniently ignored it. Even with my background, I am struggling to read through the documents we got. I look at those documents and I see there is a 299-year lease and a provision for rent. As has been alluded to by Deputy Shortall, the documents set out the position regarding rent. The Minister might explain that further and outline what will be the default position when the higher rent comes into being if the conditions are not met. The Minister might apologies for saying that the delay is on our side when the delay has consistently been on the side of the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group and the Religious Sisters of Charity. The Minister might explain how the gift we were going to get never materialised. He might also explain, as Deputy Doherty asked, why we cannot have the site given over to us in our name.

I have struggled with these documents. I can see no reason for all this complexity. If we look at the senior counsel's opinion that was commissioned by Uplift, it states: "Insofar as ownership of the lands are not obtained, the proposed arrangements are Byzantine in their complexity, almost Kafkaesque". In 2020, Dr. Peter Boylan, in the context of the ownership, was informed by the National Maternity Hospital's lawyers that there would be a plethora of different structures and ownerships and a complexity to the legal documents. The Minister is telling us today that the situation is intolerable in the hospital. I agree. What is equally intolerable is the Government's failure to deal with the serious concerns we are raising, that Dr. Boylan has raised and that the two dissenting and very distinguished members of the health executive board raised. That is not to mention the women and men of Ireland who are concerned and the three motions unanimously passed by this Dáil asking for public ownership of the hospital.

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