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

On behalf of the Labour Party, I want to say how disappointed we are by, and, indeed, how much we deplore, the Cabinet decision taken today to proceed with the new National Maternity Hospital despite the real and substantial ongoing concerns around ownership, control and governance that we and others have expressed to the Taoiseach and the Government. We have engaged with the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. I, along with many of my party colleagues, attended the rally on Saturday and saw the immense concern, distress and worry that many people feel about the fact the hospital is to be built on land that is not ultimately going to be in public ownership.

We in the Labour Party first raised the question of compulsory purchase five years ago, in 2017. Just today, I received clear figures from An Bord Pleanála as to the period for determining compulsory purchase orders, CPOs. In 2021, the average number of weeks to dispose all CPO cases was 24.72. From the beginning of January to the end of April this year, the average time to dispose all CPO cases was 20 weeks, which is just under five months.

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