Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for introducing this Private Members' motion. I absolutely support it and agree with what it states. Unfortunately, however, it is irrelevant, just like the three other motions on the issue that have been moved in the Chamber, by the Social Democrats, Deputy Connolly and me, none of which was opposed by the Government. This tactic is being used increasingly by the Government to demonstrate its complete disregard for supposedly democratic procedures in the Chamber. The pause by the Government in rubber-stamping the deal with St. Vincent's Holdings CLG and St. Vincent's Healthcare Group for two weeks, supposedly to allow for scrutiny of the arrangement by the Joint Committee on Health, was nothing of the sort. It just needed a bit more time to get its ducks in a row. Deputy Hourigan is to be congratulated on maintaining her principled position but, obviously, she will not have an opportunity to vote freely on the motion. She, along with other members of the Green Party who had a very strong position on this, will have to make a decision about their place in their party.

The Government and the parties supporting it are a disgrace. Yet again, they have bent the knee to the powerful vested interests that have dominated this State since its inception and made the lives of women, and very often their children, an absolute misery. This was a test between the State and the Catholic Church and its proxies, a test the State has failed miserably. The Government is covering up for its actions by claiming it is acting in the interests of women’s health by getting the hospital built as soon as possible. Of course, the hospital is a much-needed modern facility, but these parties were in government in 2013, when St. Vincent's Healthcare Group arrogantly dismissed the idea of co-location. It was then that the process for a compulsory purchase order should have been put in motion. If that had been done, the hospital would have been built and would be operational on State-owned land, fully publicly owned and run.

We need to deal with the reality regarding the issues with the provision of abortion services in this country. Despite the repeal of the eighth amendment and the introduction of legislation following that, abortion services are not by any stretch of the imagination widely available. Half of the 19 maternity hospitals - eight of them State-owned public hospitals - do not provide terminations, while nine out of ten GPs do not provide such services either. As for the issue of fatal foetal abnormality, two doctors are required agree on a diagnosis, and there have been instances where a termination has been refused in one healthcare setting but agreed to at a different hospital. This is what "clinically appropriate" can mean. Savita Halappanavar was given what her clinician considered "clinically appropriate" care, rather than the appropriate care that would have saved her life.

The Catholic Church casts a long shadow, not least in the case of the medical professions. Leaving aside the question of Catholic ethos, a hospital costing up to, and probably more than, €1 billion to build, and then funded on a daily basis by the State, will effectively be part of the St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group, a private entity. Even if it is a secular entity, which I do not believe for a moment, why is the State handing over effective control, with questions over the ownership, to a private company? Why is the State prepared to enter a legal agreement with a private company deliberately set up through offshore arrangements to avoid scrutiny of its real nature and the basis on which it was set up?

This points to yet another miserable failure in the context of Sláintecare, the objective of a public national healthcare system, open to all regardless of ability to pay. The Government has bent the knee not just to Vatican officials but to the vested interests of private medicine. Sláintecare does not have a hope of ever being implemented or seeing the light of day. I believe the Government is wrong, although I hope I am incorrect in that regard because I hope we will never again see in the future what we saw in the past. I am just very angry.

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