Seanad debates

Friday, 2 July 2021

National Maternity Hospital: Statements

 

9:30 am

Photo of Mary Seery KearneyMary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking the statements. The ideal would be that we already owned the site and we already owned everything about the co-located hospital and were able to build our national maternity hospital unfettered from having to negotiate with anybody else other than developers and keeping them in check. In this instance, who do we trust? Given the legacy of the religious in the care of women and children in the State, I certainly do not trust the religious orders. This has been overwhelmingly demonstrated in report after report and commission of investigation after commission of investigation. Who do I trust? I trust the Government. I trust our negotiators of recent years. I trust those negotiating in the here and now that we have a very fine realistic balance in getting to a place where we have this hospital built. There is a danger that the perfect becomes the enemy of the good and the provision of services for women is delayed for years more. I am concerned about this balance.

We do not have the ideal and we do not own the site. We are on the back foot. If we start compulsory purchase why do we not use it for all of the other hospitals? I also campaigned for repealing the eighth amendment. I also believed in the right of women to their bodily integrity and to make choices and decisions over their bodies. Here we are, a number of years on, and back in March the health committee heard that only 50% of the hospitals throughout the country are delivering all of the services they should, and only one GP in ten is doing so. We need a wider debate. Why are we not using compulsory purchase orders for the schools that are trotting out an ethos and education programme contrary to the rights of parents and the complexity of families and the eclectic families we have at present? There is a larger debate to be had on severing the connection between the church and the State once and for all. If we are paying for it we should own it and we should have control.

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