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Taoiseach Micheál Martin has not ruled out placing a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the site of the new national maternity hospital, but he cautioned that such action could jeopardise the entire project.
It comes after the State’s attempts to buy the land the new hospital will be built on were thrown into disarray s the St Vincent’s Hospital group insisted it would retain ownership.
Mr Martin said he did not accept the group’s argument that it was essential it retain ownership of the site to ensure integrated provision of services.
He added that they “should take note of the consensus in the Oireachtas on this particular issue and should reflect on that and should, in my view, respond appropriately”.
The hospital group is set to meet Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly shortly on the matter.
Mr Martin was responding in the Dáil to calls from Opposition leaders for the State to buy the land amid significant concerns over the ownership and governance of the hospital.
The controversy dominated Leaders’ Questions and was the subject earlier of a two-hour debate on a Social Democrats motion calling for the land on which the hospital is due to be built to be 100 per cent in public ownership.
Opposition calls
Social Democrats joint leader Róisín Shortall said “this Government must actively support the principles of this motion and make a solemn promise to the people of Ireland” that it “will not give away ownership or control over another hospital. Nothing else will suffice.”
Labour leader Alan Kelly claimed the hospital group was “pushing their weight around” in the row over the ownership of the new hospital, the establishment of which was first announced in 2013.
Mr Kelly said, “I don’t believe you have any choice”, as he called on the Government to place a CPO on the “whole site – public, private, maternity – and create one fantastic campus, formed by the State on land owned by the State”.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the site “must be in the ownership of the State. That is the beginning, middle and end of it.
“We are looking at a mess with the fingerprints of successive governments all over it,” she said.
Meanwhile, People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith said that “who controls the land does mater” as she and Independent TD Joan Collins also demanded that the State ensure the hospital was in public ownership.
But Mr Martin said that “CPO is easily said and easily called for”.
He asked “if we move off site” what tertiary hospital would be available for required co-location and how much longer would the project take.
The issue sparked controversy as Tánaiste Leo Varadkar admitted there were concerns in Government that the new hospital would not be on State-owned land and would instead be the subject of a 99-year lease with the option for an extension to 149 years.
Religious ethos
The Government has said it wants to buy the land amid concerns about ownership and religious ethos, but the St Vincent’s Hospital Group in a letter said it “must retain ownership of the site‘ for the “delivery of integrated patient care”.
Campaigners have also raised concerns about the governance structures and what they fear is a possible religious influence arising from those arrangements. The Government has insisted there will be no involvement of religious or any other ethos.
Earlier Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly was warned that there is a “red line” over the ownership issue.
“It is my strong preference that the hospital will be built on land owned by the State,” he said, adding that he understood the concerns about governance and ethos, and insisted all options continue to be explored.
Mr Donnelly stressed that he would only bring a recommendation to Government if he had an “absolutely watertight confirmation as to the full clinical and operational independence of the National Maternity Hospital”.
But he told the Dáil “it is certainly the case that full independence can be achieved without owning the land”.
He said “many primary care centres around Ireland are in buildings on land owned by third parties, and nobody would reasonably suggest that those landlords would dictate what services GP and clinicians could or could not provide within those buildings”.
Social Democrats joint leader Catherine Murphy told the Minister that “you have to decide that there is a red line here”.
“It’s not about language that you would prefer that the land is owned. It is essential that land is owned,” she said. “You’ve got to decide what side of history you’re on.”
‘Procrastination’
Ms Murphy hit out at the “procrastination” involved since the project was first announced in 2013. “We had minister James Reilly announcing it, Minister Varadkar as minister for health, Minister Harris who told us that he would get this sorted within a month,” she said.
“We’re being told we can’t call the CPO because it would delay the hospital but the delays have happened because of procrastination.”
Ms Shortall accused Mr Donnelly of being “in denial” and hiding behind the phrase that “this is my preference” for ownership.
She said the Government’s stance on the hospital is in “direct contravention” of a report by former senior European Union official Catherine Day on publicly funded health services, which says: “Where the State decides to build any new hospital or facility it should endeavour to ensure it owns the land on which the hospital or facility is built.”
Ms Shortall said: “Crucially, the report concludes that legally the State cannot compel private Catholic entities to provide services that are contrary to their ethos.”
Ms Shortall warned that “the State does not own the land and has no means of ensuring the full range of reproductive and sexual health services.”
Minister of State for Health Mary Butler expressed concern at some comments from Opposition TDs that described as “attempts to demonise the Catholic faith, which is unnecessary and disappointing”.