Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a number of issues. Once again, I will raise that relating to restrictions at our maternity hospitals. I am sure many people will have listened to the harrowing recounting of events by a man named John on Newstalk, who tweeted the previous day that his wife had suffered a miscarriage. My condolences go out to them and their family. John was stopped at the door of the hospital and was not allowed to go in with his wife. I am not sure how he managed to speak on the radio the next day. It is a credit to him because that story is so important in the context of getting these restrictions lifted. He was almost in tears on the radio. He spoke about how his wife was distraught and devastated, on her own in her hospital bed, while he was trying to console her via WhatsApp. What happened was unacceptable and disgraceful. We will be dealing with the impact of the trauma we are causing on people unnecessarily. We are still awaiting a proper and full response from the HSE as to who is making the decisions. We know that national guidelines are in place. The hospitals are clearly just ignoring those guidelines and doing what they please. It does not happen in any other area of healthcare, yet it is somehow okay when it comes to women's healthcare. We have been here many times before in many aspects of women's healthcare and well-being in this country. I know the Leader has done her very best in respect of this issue. I ask her once again to use her good offices to get some sort of an update from the HSE and the Department of Health. It is long overdue.

I welcome the response from Minister for Health and his Department to the ongoing saga with the ownership of the national maternity hospital site. I understand that the Government is renewing efforts to try to purchase the site. If I can say this, the Religious Sisters of Charity is playing it a bit too cute in suggesting that it has not been asked to sell the site. It has been asked via St. Vincent's Holdings CLG and the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. I ask all those entities, which are clearly connected in one shape or other, to do the right thing on behalf of the State and of women and girls in this country, ell the land at a reasonable price and remove themselves from all influence, either directly or indirectly.

The final issue I wish to raise is that of the new report by Professor John Bradley with regard to the western rail corridor. This is an issue that is very close to my heart. I have been working on this with the West On Track campaign since I became a councillor in 2014. Last year, the Government commissioned a long-sought review by EY-DKM, which did a consultant's report on the feasibility of opening the track from Athenry to Tuam and on to Claremorris. The consultant's report came back with what I consider to be a precooked outcome. Many colleagues across the Seanad and the Dáil engaged in that. The report said there was a certain cost and a certain journey time. That has now been completely debunked by a new report by Professor Bradley, which shows that the cost of reinstating the tracks is actually €128 million, not €263 million. The amount involved is, therefore, half of what EY-DKM suggested it would be. The journey time is also much faster. Those are the two aspects we are taking into consideration around the cost-benefit analysis of actually putting this project in place. I ask that the Minister for Transport come before the House at the earliest opportunity to discuss the huge variation between both reports and the merits of this new report by Professor Bradley, which I believe warrants a significant hearing by the Department and the Government.