Sinn Féin vote on National Maternity Hospital will put pressure on Government TDs

Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan has said the deal “puts her in a difficult position”, suggesting she may not support the Government position.

The motion will call on the Government to “pursue the full realisation of the promise that was made by the Religious Sisters of Charity to gift the land to the people of Ireland” and to “engage, at the highest level, with the new ownership group behind SVHG, St Vincent’s Holdings CLG, to secure full public ownership of the site and new building”.

The motion says that this should ensure “all necessary safeguards, wayleaves, and guarantees to ensure the integrity, integration, and highest quality of care on the site”.

It also calls for increased resourcing of the maternity strategy and refurbishment of maternity hospitals and units in need of works.

The motion will also call on the Government “to ensure the full provision of the range of legally available sexual and reproductive health services across all relevant HSE facilities and the advancement of accessible community-based services in this field”.

Meanwhile, Dr Peter Boylan, the former Master of the National Maternity Hospital, said that it is not credible that values upheld by the Sisters of Charity are compatible with services such as elective abortion.

Concern about Catholic ethos is too acute to proceed unless and until there is full scrutiny of all correspondence between Ireland and Rome," he said.

'Clinically appropriate'

He described the phrase "clinically appropriate" in the new hospital’s legal framework as "a major red flag", and said "providing healthcare on the basis of this test removes autonomy from women and gives the sole decision-making capacity to doctors".

Ms Hourigan said that she wished to see the phrase "clinically appropriate" changed.

"It is very hard for me I am a repealer, that is why I got into politics,” she told RTÉ. 

I'm not really sure where I go from there. It puts me in a very difficult position."

The Health Minister told the Dáil that an attempt to purchase the site for the new hospital could collapse the project.

Repeating what he and the Taoiseach told the Fianna Fáil parliamentary meeting, Stephen Donnelly said a compulsory purchase order might also be refused by the courts, given the existing lease of 300 years.

A compulsory purchase could take many years due to the complexities involved as the site was in the middle of a larger healthcare campus, he said.

I don't believe it's reasonable to put a project like this at risk, to potentially delay it for many, many years or derail it entirely in order to move from leasehold to freehold," Mr Donnelly said.

Mr Donnelly said he cannot commit to legal changes in the legal documents underpinning the proposed building of the new National Maternity Hospital at St Vincent’s.

Speaking in the Dáil, Mr Donnelly said he accepted the concern about the lack of a definition of what constitutes “clinically appropriate” in terms of the services to be offered to women treated in the new hospital.

He said, however, he could not give a commitment in the Dáil to altering the documents, but said he would reflect on the matter in the coming days.