Boylan: Government can't guarantee Catholic ethos won't govern new National Maternity Hospital
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The former master of the National Maternity Hospital has insisted questions still need to be answered about the relocation of the hospital and the involvement of any Catholic ethos.
Dr Peter Boylan has written to Taoiseach Micheál Martin about his serious concerns following the announcement by the Religious Sisters of Charity that they have transferred their shareholding in St Vincent’s Healthcare Group to St Vincent’s Holdings.
In the letter, which is copied to Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, he says: "I see absolutely no justification for the new publicly funded National Maternity Hospital to be owned by St Vincent’s Holdings."
He raises a string of questions: over any conditions that may have been set by the Holy See for the transfer of ownership of SVHG to St Vincent’s Holdings; around the role of two companies — Stembridge Ltd and Porema Ltd — in the latest developments; the potential for St Vincent’s Holdings to merge with a private US healthcare group; and an apparent €457m drop in valuation of SVHG, from an initial €661m in 2018 to €204m last week.
St Vincents Holdings CLG dismissed the criticisms and said some of the points raised by Dr Boylan are "scaremongering".
Dr Boylan said the issues needed to be "urgently considered" by Government and said the current plans could leave maternity services as a "Cinderella service" within a larger hospital setting.
Referring to conditional permission granted by the Vatican for the transfer, Mr Boylan said the correspondence between the Religious Sisters of Charity and Rome "has never been made public", arguing "it is clearly not possible for the Government to make any commitment or promise that Catholic ethos will not govern St Vincent’s Holdings and therefore the operation of the relocated National Maternity Hospital which will — as the plan currently stands — be owned and controlled by St Vincent’s Holdings."
As for Stembridge Ltd and Porema Ltd, which are linked with thousands of offshore firms, he stressed there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing but queried why such a "complex" arrangement was required.
In response, St Vincents Holdings CLG said it was set up through a service provided by PwC. A spokesperson said: "It is standard business practice to use ‘off the shelf’ companies when incorporating a new company. This very common approach was used to facilitate the incorporation of SV CLG. Nominees of Porema and Stembridge acted as the first members/directors and as is normal practice were immediately replaced when the company became part of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group and a new constitution was drafted.
"Any suggestion that there is something ‘murky’ about the manner in which the SV CLG was incorporated is disingenuous and continues the campaign of scaremongering and misinformation being spread about our group. It is unacceptable that such scaremongering persists despite the factual situation."
The spokesperson said the board of SVHG "has always been clear in our determination to evolve as a secular organisation delivering world–class healthcare services in Ireland to provide the best outcomes for our patients and their families".