Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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2. To ask the Minister for Health the way he plans to reconcile the requirements for full healthcare for women, including termination of pregnancy, in the new national maternity hospital if it is built on land owned by a Vatican-approved successor organisation to a Catholic religious congregation. [17012/22]

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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My question relates to the future of the proposed national maternity hospital on the grounds of St. Vincent's University Hospital. Its construction has been something of a saga. People want clarity on its proposed ethos and ownership.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his question. There will be a detailed session in the House on this issue this evening, at which I am sure we will get into greater detail.

I reiterate my position since the start of this process. I will bring proposals on the new national maternity hospital to Government only if there are absolute guarantees of full independence for the national maternity hospital and absolute guarantees that all the services prescribed under law will be available there, as they are in Holles Street right now. There will be no religious influence from Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Taoism - you name it. This hospital will be run according to the law of the land. Under the proposed legal framework, neither the Vatican nor the Religious Sisters of Charity will play any role in the governance of the new hospital or in its operation.

The sisters are transferring their shareholding to the new entity. The public constitution of St. Vincent's Holdings makes no reference to Canon Law. My Department has previously been advised that Canon Law will not impact on anything to do with this new hospital whatsoever.

Regardless of who owns the land on which the new hospital is built, the legal framework is being developed to address both the ownership and, critically, the governance of the hospital. There are several priorities: to ensure that all clinically appropriate and legally permissible services will be available in the new national maternity hospital; to prevent any undue influence, religious or otherwise, on the operation of the new hospital; and to safeguard the State's significant investment in the new hospital.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Is the Minister confident that will happen because this has been an ongoing saga for the past ten years? For the casual observer, it is extremely confusing in relation to the ownership of the land and the ethos of the building itself. I understand the building will be owned by the State but the board will still be run by a private holding, that is, the Religious Sisters of Charity. If that is the case, that may be not conducive to a Catholic ethos - I understand the Minister is probably on the same page as we are - but there is something gone awry in relation to ethos in one guise and the ownership and public money. All that does not add to where we all want to go. There is confusion.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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All I can do is repeat the position, which is that when I bring the final structure to the Government for approval, it will have multiple layers of protection in place. The Religious Sisters of Charity will have no hand, act, part, role, influence, board membership or anything else in the new structure. That is simply not going to happen.

The Deputy is correct. There is genuine concern out there. I have spent time talking to the midwives and the doctors in the National Maternity Hospital. These are the women and the men who are treating mums and babies and they are really concerned about what they have described as a campaign of misinformation. It is their lawyers who are writing the contracts and, ultimately, we need to listen carefully to the midwives and the doctors. What they are telling us is that they are absolutely satisfied that the new structures give them all of the independence that they need. They have written publicly on several occasions to ask those who are running what not I but the midwives and the doctors are calling a campaign of misinformation to stop for the reasons the Deputy has outlined.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will take the Minister's word on that. What the women of Ireland will want to know is when will construction begin. We have seen projects in the State previously that are completely dragged out and, eventually, they may never be built. A modern hospital for the 21st century has to have a modern ethos to fit the 21st century. We live in a different era from when it was established on Holles Street. It was a completely different age in Ireland. I will take the Minister at his word. What I want to get from the last segment of my contribution is the details on when this will be signed off and the work will begin on the St. Vincent's campus.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The work on the enabling structures has already commenced. Much work has already happened on the carpark. Much work has been done on a pharmacy.

On the process, I want to bring this to the Government soon. I imagine we will have a rigorous debate. I am happy to bring it to the Joint Committee on Health to tease it out there as well. There is a great deal of interest. What I want to do is make myself available, the officials available and, probably most importantly, the clinicians from the National Maternity Hospital available to engage with the Oireachtas and to answer some very real questions about the concerns that Members of the Oireachtas have. I hope to bring a memorandum to the Government on that shortly. As soon as that is done, we will move forward with the process in terms of planning, development and design and then getting into building the hospital as quickly as possible. As the Deputy has quite rightly said, genuine concerns were raised last year. We have significantly improved the proposal since then. A significant amount of work has gone on but all of this takes time. The Deputy is right when he says that this hospital has been talked about for ten years. Once we are satisfied that we have the legal guarantees around independence and governance, we need to get on and get this hospital built.