Results 1,581-1,600 of 6,020 for speaker:Martin Conway

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: Speaking of our new Ukrainian friends, the Cabinet subcommittee will be meeting today to review where we are at. We now have 29,000 Ukrainians living in Ireland. Many of these are children who are going to school and who have little English. There is also a quite a number of Ukrainians who were teachers in Ukraine. They have good English and are working in schools doing translation. Yet,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: I thank our guests for coming. I know it was at short notice but it was important for us to have an engagement with them. I have been aware of the work of Dr. Boylan for many years and would like to acknowledge it. The women of Ireland very much appreciate what he has done over the years. Are all legally available services, including termination of pregnancy, being provided in Holles...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: What is Dr. Boylan's response when practically all of the midwives in that hospital are in favour of building a new national maternity hospital and do not in any way feel they will be compromised or that the services they are providing at the moment will not be provided in that new national maternity hospital? In addition to that are the managers of the 19 maternity services around the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: It is important to put on the record that the chair of the board of Holles Street hospital is the Archbishop of Dublin.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: I suggest the same thing will happen in the new national maternity hospital.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: No. The Sisters of Charity will have no active role, part or active engagement, high up or low down. They will just let the facility do what it is expected to do.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: Mr. Boylan made a very important point that he has not seen - none of us have - the correspondence between the Vatican and St. Vincent's.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: Where did Mr. Boylan see what he quoted?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: Okay.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: We had a four-and-a-half-hour engagement yesterday with the Minister and his legal people. We were told that, for their own reasons, which include the fact that St. Vincent's is a campus with a number of healthcare facilities on it, and corridors in the new hospital will be interlinked and so on, they did not believe it was practical to gift it. It is not on the table. It will not happen....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: Does Mr. Boylan accept that a 299-year lease is probably the longest lease that has ever been given to any entity in this country?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: I am not expecting Mr. Boylan to be.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: I will go back to the point I made earlier, which is that is clearly not an option that is on the table. Everyone on this committee wants the State to buy the land. The ideal scenario is it would be a freehold and in State ownership for eternity, but that is not an option. I am trying to figure out from what Mr. Boylan is saying, with the two options of being able to purchase it and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: It is not for sale. That is the problem.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: The Minister was before the committee yesterday. The land is not for sale. We cannot buy something that is not for sale. We cannot go down the compulsory purchase route because it would set the project back another ten years. I am again putting it to Mr. Boylan that it is not an option. Where is his solution since that is not an option?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: Okay. I would like to dwell for a moment on the consequences of this not going ahead. Mr. Boylan has worked in this area all his life and dedicated his professional life to it. Clearly, he is a believer in co-location. If the Cabinet, for argument's sake, decided not to go ahead with this, I have no doubt he appreciates how many years the building of a new hospital will be set back. What...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: I know Professor Higgins understands the hurt that has been caused to the women of Ireland over the years, but can he also understand why they are deeply cynical about this arrangement and why the opinion poll at the weekend showed that nearly two thirds of people are cynical and have questions about it? Does he understand that we are here to voice their concerns? We all are here to achieve...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: That is good, and I welcome that fact. I was going to raise it but Deputy Bríd Smith raised it before me, because I considered some of the language in Professor Higgins's opening statement quite emotive. I do not think it was helpful, but he has clarified it and acknowledged it. That is very welcome. Professor Higgins also said in the opening statement that he had spoken to a legal...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Martin Conway: It was in the opening statement and usually when one is making an opening statement to the Oireachtas one would identify or at least verify the sources.