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

I am seeking clarity on the issues and I am certainly not questioning the Taoiseach's bona fides. All of us want to see a new, state of the art, modern National Maternity Hospital but we want to see it done right. We do not want to see the mistakes of the past repeated whereby the State has poured millions of euro into maintaining publicly funded hospitals and schools on land that remains in the ownership of religious orders or their successor lay-run companies. That is what we do not want to see. We are happy to engage with the Government. We are glad that the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, is engaging with us and indeed we will be meeting with him tomorrow for a briefing. We want to ensure that we get this right and that we move away from the mistakes of the past.

There is clearly an agenda lying behind the decision not to gift the land to the State or sell it at a reduced rate. It is not an agenda of the Government or of the HSE, but there is an agenda and a rationale, presumably, behind the decision by the current owners of the land not to transfer it to the State for a nominal sum or indeed to gift it to the State. That is the question we are asking. I do not think any of us on the Opposition benches have got a satisfactory answer as to why the land could not simply be transferred in that way. If there is a willingness to transfer it on a 299-year lease, why not put the matter beyond doubt and provide it to the State in perpetuity?

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