The Tánaiste knows as well as I do that when one fights hard for something one does not give it up easily. The Tánaiste fought hard for the leadership of Fine Gael; he will not walk away from it. All my adult life I, and tens of thousands of women in this country, have fought very hard to be free from the shackles of the Catholic Church over our reproductive rights. We won that fight three years ago when we won the repeal referendum.

My question today is about the proposed new national maternity hospital. A recent statement from the Religious Sisters of Charity claimed they will have no involvement in the management of St. Vincent's Hospital Group, the new private charity named St. Vincent's Holdings, but this is technically incorrect. The nuns may no longer have any involvement in the day-to-day management of the hospital, but they may be able to appoint directors and are entitled to appoint the successors of the new holding company.

The Religious Sisters of Charity say they have gifted the St. Vincent's Hospital site to the people of Ireland.

I ask if the people of Ireland are obliged to accept a gift from nuns who were involved in the Magdalen laundries, in mother and baby homes and in running a hospital that refused to provide sterilisation, vasectomy or any reproductive rights to women and men. They can take their gift. If they want to give a gift of land for a new national maternity hospital, they should gift it to the State. The women of this country and those of us who fought so hard should not go forward with a new national maternity hospital that is still dominated by the ethos of the St. Vincent's group.

Recent statements by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and the Ministers, Deputies Stephen Donnelly and Eamon Ryan, say they intend to proceed with the Mulvey plan. That plan was welcomed by the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, in 2016. We should remind ourselves that predated repeal and repeal changed everything. Unless the Government is intent on trashing the outcome of the repeal campaign, a couple of questions need to be honestly and firmly answered. Even if those answers include a guarantee of full reproductive rights, including gender alignment, abortion and vasectomy, we still do not believe the nuns and we do not necessarily believe the Government because the facts speak for themselves. The constitutional make-up of the new St. Vincent's holding group still allows for the voluntary organisations in the publicly-funded healthcare premises to maintain their private Catholic ethos. I do not believe the nuns. I do not disrespect them by saying that but I have to believe people based on their history and the level of trust they have given to us.

Will the Tánaiste present the current draft of the legal framework to the Dáil for examination? Will he acknowledge that the Mulvey plan was made redundant by the repeal referendum and must be scrapped? Will he act to take the new maternity hospital into full public ownership?

I thank the Deputy. At the outset, I would like to state that I believe we all respect and value the role played by the Religious Sisters of Charity in providing healthcare and education down the years when the State did not. We all support the building of a new national maternity hospital at Elm Park. We need it and women need those modern facilities. Holles Street is a great hospital but it belongs to 200 years ago, not to today.

There are problems in going forward with this project. The Deputy and I agree on this more than she may believe. The hospital will be owned by the State. The governing constitution, memorandum and legal documents for the new hospital guarantee that all services currently available in Holles Street, including terminations, abortions, sterilisations, will be available in the new hospital.

There is not a concern around that but the Government has a big concern about two other aspects. First is the ownership of the land the hospital will be built on. That is not being gifted to the State but to a private charity. It is proposed that there be a 99-year lease to the State. We have a difficulty with that. We do not think the safeguards around that are strong enough. The land would be owned by a private charity rather than the State and only a 99-year lease would be provided. Second, we have a difficulty with the governance of the proposed new hospital. It will be a voluntary hospital. That is okay. There are many such hospitals and they work well. However, the board will not be appointed by the Government. That is a real difficulty because a hospital that is almost fully funded by the State should have a significant number or majority of members of the board appointed by the Government.

That is the problem we face at the moment. There are two things we are happy enough about: owning the hospital and the guarantee that all procedures legal in the State will be provided in the hospital. There is a difficulty about the ownership of the land it will be on. We are not happy with the lease proposal or the governance arrangements. We are working through those things at the moment.

I cannot accept the guarantee that full reproductive rights, including gender realignment, will be available because the constitution of the new holding company states that its core values are identical to those of the St. Vincent's hospital holding group. That constitution needs to change. I accept the Tánaiste is concerned about some of the things we are concerned about. Ideally, the State should purchase the site by compulsory purchase order, fully pay for it, build it, staff it and run it without any interference from a charity to which the nuns can appoint directors. That is the only way out of this.

The Mulvey report on which this is premised has been outdated by the repeal result. That changes everything. People in this country feel so strongly about it that there is a mounting campaign, which will be outside the gates of Leinster House on 26 June, which is Saturday week. I invite everybody who is concerned about our future rights to full choice and no less to be there. We still have not had a review of the abortion legislation and that leaves many questions unanswered.

From the point of view of the Government, it is an absolute requirement that the constitution and the memorandum and articles of association, memo and arts, for the new hospital must specify that any procedures and treatments legal in the State are available in that hospital. There can be no ambiguity about that. That includes sterilisation, IVF, assisted reproduction and terminations. I will look into the issue of gender reassignment. I was not aware that was done in maternity hospitals. I thought it was done in adult general hospitals. It may be a separate matter.

The Government is working on this. I agree that the ideal scenario would be ownership of the site. However, in terms of design it is an integrated building with the existing hospital, rather than a separate building. That makes it tricky but I agree that would be a better option than what is being proposed, which is a 99-year lease with certain guarantees. That is not adequate in the view of the Government at the moment.