Twenty-four hours is a long time in politics. Yesterday, when I raised this issue with the Taoiseach in respect of solutions, he told me to get real regarding CPOing this land. I am telling him now that the people of Ireland want him to get real. The Government cannot proceed as currently constructed. The statement yesterday by St. Vincent's Healthcare Group was a two-fingers to the Taoiseach, the Minister, me, everyone in the Chamber and the Irish people. The Taoiseach now needs to get real. I do not blame him for this mess; he inherited it.

I have gone through the documents. My colleague Senator Bacik requested them under freedom of information, which is probably why some of them were released. I know the history of this; I have been chasing it for years. We need a solution here. The Taoiseach needs to listen to the Minister of State at the Department of Health who said yesterday when she saw the statement going out, "The letters C, P and O come to mind". I understand the timeframes and the issues in that regard. I also understand that what the programme for Government states is weak. It talks about concluding governance arrangements but not about the hospital being publicly owned on public land.

I do want to have a big argy-bargy argument with the Taoiseach on this. I just want to point out that he is in a very weak position. St. Vincent's Healthcare Group is pushing its weight around and trying to push the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, into a corner. They need to fight back on behalf of the Irish people. This is a seismic moment. We are at a crossroads. It is a seismic moment for the people, and the State and the Government need to stand up to bullies. The Government needs leverage and support, and it will have our support.

The Taoiseach stated earlier that the State has put significant investment in St. Vincent's Hospital over the years. He is right; I could not agree more. The leverage the Government needs is that, if the group is not willing to gift the land to the State, which it can do without all the connotations of Canon Law it is trying to delineate, we should CPO the entire site. Who paid for it in the first instance? As the Taoiseach said earlier, it was the taxpayer. In a spirit of co-operation and conceding that he inherited this, I ask the Taoiseach whether, given where we are today and the statement yesterday, we should not just CPO the entire site - public, private, maternity - and create one fantastic campus owned by the State, on land owned by the State and run by the State.

I appreciate the sentiments the Deputy articulated and the support he has offered the Government in dealing with this issue. I very deliberately yesterday and today stated that the Government has put in the bulk of funding and investment in St. Vincent's Hospital, both current and capital. The statement yesterday was not, in my view, an appropriate response at all. I said yesterday that there needs to be respectful engagement with the funders - the taxpayer and the people - who are represented by the Government of the day. That is my position. I also said some years back, and I am still of the view, that the State needs to own any facilities it builds. I believe that not just in regard to healthcare, although it is specific to tertiary healthcare because it is so complex and capital intensive and absorbs so much funding. It can be no other way into the future, given the complexity of modern tertiary hospitals. I would also apply it elsewhere. In disability services across the board, the State needs to become more involved to ensure we have proper accountability and first-class provision of services across the board.

In the case of this hospital, I made reference to a CPO. The Deputy knows the implications of a CPO.

I do. I have said it for years.

It can take a long time-----

Yes.

-----and it could, let us be honest about it, undermine the prospect of ever getting the hospital built. That has to be weighed up. We do not rule anything out here but that has to be weighed up. The announcement on this was made in 2013. The Mulvey mediation took place in 2016. Planning permission has been granted for this. The enabling works on the car park and the pharmacy have been completed. That is where we are right now in respect of this.

That said, there needs to be a long, ongoing, sustained relationship between St. Vincent's Healthcare Group and the Government if the optimal care is to be provided on that site, at both the tertiary hospital and the new maternity hospital. It cannot be the approach taken yesterday. The investment the State will make in this hospital will be very significant in terms of the hundreds of millions of euro that could be spent and the need for that investment and the public interest to be protected. I am satisfied that all legally available services will be provided at the hospital, but there are issues, as I said, in respect of governance and the ownership that remain to be resolved.

The people of Ireland want the Government to make the right decision. The Taoiseach spoke about this being an equation whereby it could take some period of time for the hospital to be built if we CPO it. To be honest, given the statement issued, unless the group has a complete change of heart, engages with the Minister and decides to gift the land, I do not believe the Government will have any choice because the public will not tolerate it. That is the reality. I do not say that with any glee. I do not wish we were here, but we are here. This is a crossroads for Irish society. The idea that the church is going to have a role in healthcare and maternity care is just not an option. It cannot happen. The Taoiseach's Government is going to have to be the one that will make sure this change happens because the time is now. Not only that, I am saying clearly that the Government should nationalise the entire campus if the group is not willing to see that change. We will support it 100%. I have been advocating for the nationalisation of private hospitals, as the Taoiseach knows, for some time.

In this scenario, we need leverage. The group is not going to do anything, it is not going to change. That statement was insulting and infuriating. Let the Taoiseach consider this-----

The time is up.

I will conclude. If the group does not, in a short period, say, a month or so, meet the Minister and say that it will gift the land to the State, I ask that the Taoiseach pursue a full CPO of the whole site.

As I said, the Minister is going to engage with the stakeholders involved-----

They have already said-----

It is not just about the church anymore; it is about trusts that follow in the aftermath of what was once religious ownership. That is happening on a number of fronts. It is about the capacity of such trusts to be in a position to manage and govern major tertiary hospitals of this magnitude and complexity into the future. This is an important moment because it sends a signal to any future developments. The Rotunda Hospital and the Coombe Women's Hospital will be more easily facilitated. Others have many issues with capital and getting the process rolling in moving to publicly owned lands where there are publicly owned hospitals. When the HSE was set up, at that time there was a medium-term view to have greater alignment between all hospitals in the country towards the one system. That has been perfected very well in the current pandemic.

I thank the Taoiseach. Time is up.

Things are changing and moving in a certain direction-----

I thank the Taoiseach. Time is up.

-----and the negotiations here must reflect that reality. The Minister will be engaging on this.

We need leverage.