National Maternity Hospital should be fully owned by state, says Senator

The Government should ensure that the new National Maternity Hospital and land on which it is to be built, will be fully publicly owned, says a Senator.

Speaking in the Seanad, Independent Senator Alice-Mary Higgins said the Minister for Health should “review plans for the national maternity hospital, take steps to ensure the hospital has full public ownership and accountability, and ensure the land it is built on is owned by the State and not subject to a limited period lease, which could compromise the provision of maternity and reproductive healthcare for future generations.”

The Government currently plans to lease the land on which the hospital will be built from St Vincent’s Holding’s, a company established by the Daughters of Charity, for 99 years.

Senator Higgins said that more needs to be done to protect women’s reproductive health.

“This state has a sad history of failing women on maternal and reproductive health, from symphysiotomy to CervicalCheck, and transferring power to religious charities when it comes to pregnant women.

“We have been painfully reminded of the consequences of that abdication in the appalling report on the mother and baby homes.”

St Vincent’s Holdings is currently ran by a specially established charitable trust, St Vincent’s CLG.

“Why would any trust, charitable or not, have control of any kind over our national maternity hospital?

“Why are they allowed to lease the land to the state instead of selling or giving it?” said Senator Higgins.

“The same Daughters of Charity, in response to outrage over their role in illegal adoptions, have suggested an investigation stretching back to 1922.

“If we are looking back to the mistakes made 99 years ago, I ask the Minister of State to also look forward 99 years, which is the proposed length of the lease.

“That is not very long. We are talking about our children’s children’s children, and if the state has to renegotiate when that lease expires, that is a hostage to fortune in terms of maternal and reproductive care.”

Senator Higgins said “we are in a very different Ireland since the 2016 Mulvey Agreement” which sets out the current proposed corporate and clinical governance arrangements for the new hospital.

“The people of our country have broken their silence and taken back control of women’s reproductive rights.

“The state has had to apologise time and again for how it failed women in the past.

“Let it learn from that and not make bad compromises that will fail the women of the future.”

“Responding to Senator Higgins, Minister of State at the Department of Health Anne Rabbitte acknowledged that “the Mulvey Agreement is outdated and that Ireland has moved on a great deal since it was commissioned and finalised.”