Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I was shocked last week to learn that the general manager of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital has announced her intention to change the name of the hospital. A notice sent to some staff last week suggests that the dropping of the name of this institution, which is more than 60 years old, is a fait accompli. There has been no consultation worth the name. It seems a decision is being handed down by a public official who has forgotten that public servants are accountable not just to their staff but also to the wider community, just as the Minister of State and I are.

For all my public life I have fought to separate church and State, whether in the campaigns to repeal the eighth amendment and for marriage equality or in fighting for pluralism and greater tolerance in this country. I assure the Minister of State that I have the scars on my back from those campaigns, which were far from politically popular or indeed profitable until recently. As a real pluralist, the name of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital does not offend me. The notion that we dispense with it and, as a consequence, the link to our local hospital's founders does not sit comfortably with me. This hospital was built, as the Minister of State might know, by the Medical Missionaries of Mary and Mother Mary Martin. Its bricks were financed by the people of Drogheda. There would be no hospital in Drogheda were it not for the vision of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. This is an historical fact that cannot just be airbrushed out in a rebranding campaign. One need not be a practising Catholic to understand and appreciate the abiding legacy of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, and thankfully there is no longer a Roman Catholic ethos in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. That has not been the case since the hospital transferred to State ownership through the North Eastern Health Board back in 1997, but that legacy, regardless of whether one agrees with the founders' religious perspective, ought to be honoured and the name of the hospital should remain. It is part of our identity as Drogheda people and part of the town's social and historical fabric. Will the Minister of State apprise me of who gets to make the final decision on this issue, in other words, who has the authority to do that in law? Is it the general manager, the board of the RCSI hospital group or the HSE, or is there a function for the Department of Health in this matter?