Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----then why not put the matter beyond legal doubt and place the site in public ownership? Seek that the site be gifted to the State or to be sold at a nominal fee to the State, as was the original plan. Why, back in 2017, did the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, decide to proceed with this convoluted legal arrangement, rather than insisting then, as the Labour Party said he should, that the site be transferred into public ownership? Why, in 2017, was a decision made to proceed with this convoluted Byzantine legal arrangement, which throws into doubt issues around a lingering ethos? Why was the decision made then to proceed, rather than simply insisting on the land being transferred into public ownership? Why did the State put aside the question of a compulsory purchase order mechanism? Why did the State lose that leverage by which it would have been possible to acquire the site in perpetuity in public ownership? These are the key, valid questions that we in the Labour Party have. For us, the site must be in public ownership. It is simply not good enough that we are contemplating, in 2022, building an €800 million or €1 billion public hospital on land that will remain in private ownership by a landlord and that will not be in the ownership of the State in perpetuity.

See this speech in context