David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With respect, if it is not questions and answers and over and back, I would prefer if the Minister did not interrupt. I would give way to him if that was allowed. My point is that I had those discussions with them. I put very direct questions to them, and they were very clear that the landowners were St. Vincent's Healthcare Group and that there was a lease arrangement in place between the HSE and St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. I put it to them very directly. Who owns the freehold? They said St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. That is a fact. No matter how many times the Government tries to spin it, that is a fact and that is what they said.

They also said that they were not going to gift the land to the State. If they are telling us they are not going to gift the land to the State, and that in fact they had no meaningful discussions on that issue recently, then what is the issue? The Minister is telling us that we own the land. He and they are also telling us that they will not gift us the land. It cannot be both. The reality is that they are the landowners and they have not gifted the land to the State, and if they did, we would not need to establish the company, the National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park, because we would be building a HSE hospital on public land. We would obviously have to have arrangements in place between the hospitals on the campus and the HSE hospital - different sorts of arrangements - but we would not need a company to be established that would then have directors coming from different sources.

That would be completely unnecessary. That company would not need to be formed. Then, of course, it would not be a subsidiary of the St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group. None of that would happen. The Minister therefore cannot credibly come before the House and say there are no contractual issues, no legal issues, we own the land and yet a company has been established to run and manage the hospital with a lease arrangement with St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. The complications and legal contractual issues, constitutions, licenses and leases are all in place for one reason and one reason only, which is that we do not own the land.

I asked the Minister and the Taoiseach several times over the last number of weeks about what efforts are being made to persuade St. Vincent Healthcare Group to gift the land to the State. It transpires from yesterday, from the words of the chair of the St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group, that there was no communication from the head of Government, the Taoiseach, with the St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group. That is just absolutely bizarre. In fact, it is unbelievable given the importance of this.

We are going to lock ourselves into a legal framework for generations to come. It was not the right decision. I will finish on this point. It is deeply cynical not to oppose a motion while at the same time having no intention of supporting it.

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