Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What a desperate disappointment this cynical Government is for the women of this State and what a desperate disappointment it is for anyone who is interested in public healthcare. The ownership of this land for our new national maternity hospital was there within our grasp but this disappointing and cynical Government did not fight for it. Now we hear the chair of the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group is to be hauled in to correct the record after he said that the Government had no serious or meaningful discussions to push for full public ownership. However, at the same time, the women of Ireland and women Government Deputies are supposed to accept a letter of comfort from the same source on their health and, more importantly the future health of their children, their daughters and granddaughters. The degrading Government is not opposing our Private Member's motion. This floor show is brazen, cowardly and cynical. A billion euro of public money is being spent to build a hospital on private land. Mná na hÉireann are heard but not heeded. In the uniform of the patriarchy, the leaders of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party tell us that they know better than us, that they know what is good for us and they carry on regardless. The Government has shown contempt for public health reform and their sisters in society by doggedly pursuing its belief that it knows best, that it knows more and that women should just put up, shut up and move on.

Except the women and men who have stood by us, who campaigned against this fudge, who rejected this ambiguity and who are incensed by the insult and uncertainty of "clinically appropriate" will not move on. Some 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was not enough for the Government; it seems to have tied us into a lease for 299 years. The resistance and spirit of the repeal campaign will not be quenched. For some the repeal campaign only represented a veneer and a desire to be popular but for mná na hÉireann who were involved in "Tá For all Mná", repeal was fundamental. Déanaim comhghairdeas leis the Government; it heard us but it ignored us but I can tell the Government that we are watching. As most of the men on the other side of the House will know, women do not forget.

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