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There is “no prospect” of women in Ireland being able to access abortion services in the proposed new National Maternity Hospital if the State does not own the site, Dr Peter Boylan has said.
Dr Boylan, a former master of the current National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street, told a rally it is “incredible and unacceptable” that the State would consider investing upwards of €800 million in a site it would not own.
About 250 people attended the rally outside the Dáil against the proposal that the Sisters of Charity would continue to own the site of the New Maternity Hospital after it is built.

Supporters of the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare protesting outside the Dáil. Photograph: Alan Betson


Dr Boylan said the order needs to honour its commitment made four years ago to gift the land on which the hospital is being built, beside St Vincent’s Hospital, to the people of Ireland.
“There is no place for a Catholic ethos in women’s reproductive healthcare,” Dr Boylan said in a message delivered to the crowd.
“It is must be clear to the Government that nothing less than State ownership of the land and the hospital is acceptable.
“Unless the hospital is built on State land and is owned 100 per cent by the State, there is no prospect of the women of Ireland being able to access all reproductive healthcare in the State.”

Supporters of the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare protesting outside the Dáil. Photograph: Alan Betson


It is an “existential moment for the State”, he said, and will determine the future of healthcare in Ireland.
“We all know about historic Catholic control of health and education. This is a test case of how the State wants to go forward into the future,” he said.
“Will the Government insist that the new National Maternity Hospital be State-owned on State land or will they capitulate once again to private Catholic interests with the women of Ireland once again the losers?”

Women’s rights campaigner Ailbhe Smyth. Photograph: Alan Betson


Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said it was “extraordinary” after so many years that the Government still had no guarantee that the site would be publicly owned.
“The Government needs to get its act together. It [the hospital] needs to be built on public lands. This needs to be sorted out quickly.”
Veteran women’s rights campaigner Ailbhe Smyth said if the Government intended to build the National Maternity Hospital on a site the State did not own, she would lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop the construction work.