Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not talking to you, Deputy. It is going to be built as a hospital. I have read it all. There are no impositions in this. It is basically saying "Go and build a maternity hospital". Let us for the sake of clarity accept that. Let us not try to cloud in terms of the conditions of this. None of these are an imposition on the maternity hospital. In fact, it is a co-location. The question I want to put to the Deputy is that nobody has explained to me how the difference between a 300-year lease at €10 per year and outright freehold ownership materially affects the governance or the clinical, operational or financial independence of the hospital. Nobody has actually explained the how of that to me. People might not be happy. They might want freehold versus leasehold but there is no clear indication, following the articulation of that view, as to how that materially impacts, in real terms, on the operational, clinical or financial independence of the new maternity hospital. Yesterday, I quoted a letter from the ten directors of midwifery services and assistant directors. The Minister has also received correspondence from a very significant number of midwives - all the directors of midwifery in all of Ireland's maternity hospitals - and they are unanimous in their support for the move of the national maternity hospital from its current inner-city location to a new purpose-built world-class facility on the campus of St. Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park.

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