Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I fully support the calls for a new national maternity hospital to be publicly owned and to be built on public lands. Unfortunately, the Government is ploughing ahead. For decades, the women of Ireland have campaigned for healthcare that is free from outside influences. They need to have confidence in the type of healthcare that they get. Their concerns could have been addressed. Concerns around a complex legal deal could have been knocked on the head if the Government had kept its word and if it had bought the site into public ownership. The Government said that it wanted the land to be gifted to the State. Yet, yesterday at the health committee, we found out that there was never any meaningful discussion under this Government and this Minister around the purchase or gifting of this site. Was the Government ever serious about owning the site? It does not look like it was.

The argument against public ownership seems to be that it will cause delays. Nobody wishes to see this delayed further, but we are discussing building a hospital at the cost of €1 billion. The Minister for Health, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste could have resolved this issue. It is absolutely shameful that the Government decided to sign off on this plan this morning. The Minister will have to stand over that. He will have to explain that to his constituents. Nothing changed since it was paused. It therefore seems that committee hearings were basically a box-ticking exercise.

Tonight should have been a chance for every Deputy to cast their vote. Yet, the Government will cynically not oppose the motion. It will speak out of both sides of its mouth yet again. The women of Ireland want a maternity hospital. We want a maternity hospital that is publicly owned and that is built on public land.

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