Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are incredibly clever and well-respected people on both sides of this debate and I want us to be fair to them all. Here is what I believe we can all agree on. We all agree we need a new maternity hospital. While Holles Street is full of rich clinical experience, it is infrastructurally poor and no longer fit for purpose. We all agree a new maternity hospital should be co-located with an adult hospital. We all agree the single biggest investment in women's healthcare is well overdue, that Irish women's healthcare has been neglected and abused, and that there should be absolutely no religious influence, interference, involvement or oversight in the operation of medical clinical practice or decisions. We all agree that legally permissible services need to be provided without question and that the investment of the State needs to be protected. We all agree that we live with the legacy of control and shame that is at the root of our understandable mistrust.

This is about control but it also needs to be about the quality of healthcare that women need and deserve as soon as possible. How do we ensure both? Owning the land seems to be the cleanest solution. A total of 42 clinicians have given a cast-iron guarantee, and State legal advice states, that all legally permissible services will be provided and that there will be no interference in the running of the new hospital. The Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women's Healthcare still states clinicians will not have the same level of control at the new site and that the only way to do this is to own the land. While the Minister of State navigates through the issues of governance and ownership, and makes a decision on the memo that will be brought to Government where much work has gone into this and continues, until she gets it right I want her to remember the trauma of control and shame. I ask that the Government shows commitment to delivering the healthcare women deserve in a place and in a way they deserve.