When precisely did the Tánaiste become seriously concerned about the proposed new national maternity hospital deal? Last week, the Tánaiste told this House that there were fundamental problems with two aspects of the deal, namely, ownership and governance. Given that I have been telling the Tánaiste exactly that for the past four years, I am quite curious as to when he finally saw the light. His comments in the House last week were surprising in several respects. First, it had been pointed out to him for years by myself and others that this deal is manifestly bad for the public. Yet the Tánaiste blithely ignored all those warnings. Whenever I have raised concerns about ownership, governance and ethos, I have been fobbed off with assurances that a legal framework was all that was outstanding. Work started on that legal framework in 2017. Four years later, however, there is still no sign of it.

There is a second reason the Tánaiste's comments were unexpected. He complained bitterly about the proposed 99-year lease, saying it was not satisfactory and that we should own the site. It was his Government, however, that proposed a lease in the first place. Back in 2017, officials in the Department of Health had to twist the arms of the members of the board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group to get them to even consider a lease. That is all laid out in the correspondence released by St Vincent’s Healthcare Group this week. In July 2019, however, the Tánaiste referred to the proposed lease himself in this House. He said that St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group had agreed in principle to provide the State with a 99-year lease of the land upon which the new maternity hospital will be built. The Tánaiste framed it as a win for the State that St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group had agreed to provide a lease. The St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group has been criticised for the curt letter it released this week, and certainly much of it does not stand up to scrutiny. However, I can only imagine the shock and amazement of the St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group at the latest comments from the Tánaiste.

This mess has the fingerprints of the Tánaiste's party all over it. The former Deputy and Minister for Health, James Reilly, announced the project in 2013, the next Minister in the Department of Health was the now Tánaiste and he was followed as Minister by Deputy Simon Harris. Finally, last year, the current Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, was given what can only be described as the poisoned chalice. I am curious, therefore, given the longevity of this crisis, about what prompted the Tánaiste to get to his feet in this House last week and express serious concern. Was there something significant about the timing? This is an issue that voters in Dublin Bay South care deeply about, and perhaps their concern has been a catalyst for some long overdue action. In light of yesterday’s debate, what steps does the Tánaiste's Government now intend to take to ensure the new publicly-funded national maternity hospital is constructed on land owned by the State? Will it now be guaranteed that the new facility will be fully owned and governed by the State?

I am sorry Deputy, but we are over time.

Is serious consideration being given to Tallaght Hospital, St James’s Hospital or anywhere else?

I thank the Deputy. Like her, I have been always interested in this project and I have always had concerns about it. What prompted me, quite frankly, was a straight question from Deputy Bríd Smith. I would not have answered that question had I not been asked it. As the Deputy pointed out in her remarks, it might have been two or three years since I was last asked publicly or in this House to give my views on the new national maternity hospital project. I am conscious that negotiations have been under way during that period, and I have been restrained in what I have said.

Regarding the position of the Government, this Government and, indeed, the previous Government which I led, it has always been one that has favoured co-location over integration, that has insisted that the new hospital, like the existing one, must be clinically and operationally independent and that any gynaecological or obstetrical procedure which is lawful in this State must be provided for in this hospital. We want to own the hospital and, ideally, to own the land as well. We also want proper representation on the board, and the governance aspect is as important as the ownership of the land, if not more so. That is my position and it has not changed.

For the record, in 2017 and 2018, two memos for information were brought to Government. I checked this with the Cabinet secretariat. No memo for decision was brought to Government, and no memo decision has yet been brought to Government. Therefore, a Government decision on the lease and on the governance aspect has yet to be made. It was not made by the previous Government and it has not yet been made by this Government. Had it been made back in 2017 or 2018, I assume the project would have gone to tender by now. However, it did not. I reiterate that two memos for information went to Government and no memo for decision, and that still has not happened. We are where we are in that regard.

The Government is committed to the development of this hospital. It is planned for the St. Vincent’s University Hospital campus at Elm Park, and that is set out in the programme for Government. We have not given examination to alternative sites. What we must do now is conclude the governance arrangements necessary to ensure protection of this public investment for the public good and, in particular, to ensure there is an absolute, legally binding assurance that all legally permissible obstetrical and gynaecological services will be provided in the new hospital as they are currently in Holles Street.

There is universal agreement in this House that this must be done.

The project is unprecedented and inherently complex because it involves relocating one voluntary hospital onto the campus of another, neither of which hospital the State owns or controls at present. What is different now is that the State is going to invest hundreds of millions of euro in a new building on that campus, which changes things in my view and in the view of the Government. We have clear legal advice that the draft legal framework ensures that all legally permissible medical services will be provided in the new hospital and we are having that double checked at present.

On the 99 year lease, the Government was not satisfied with that which is why negotiations continued and why the idea of a further 50-year extension was proposed. That matter is far from concluded.

It is really a bit rich for the Tánaiste to say he expressed serious concerns just because he happened to be asked a question here. The mantra from the Government has been that the Mulvey deal is the solution. Does the Tánaiste now accept that the Mulvey deal is the problem? Apart from the issue of the lease of the site, what the Mulvey deal sets out is a corporate structure which entails St. Vincent's owning the full operation of the new national maternity hospital. Under that deal, the national maternity hospital company is to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of St. Vincent's. Is that not the nub of the problem?

In my mind, we departed from the Mulvey agreement some time ago. Mr. Mulvey was appointed by the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, to-----

If possible, I would like to answer the question. As I was about to say, the Mulvey agreement has, in my mind at least, already been departed from by the Government in certain aspects. Initially, the building was not to be owned by the State. It is my understanding that this has now been resolved and the State will own the building. That was not originally the case in the Mulvey agreement. Discussions are ongoing around the composition of the board of the national maternity hospital. Initially there was to be no representation. Now there is one public interest director but we are not satisfied with that.

The Mulvey agreement is an agreement between St. Vincent's and the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street. The Government is aware of that but has never said that was the end of it-----

The Government has continued with it-----

We have not. We have changed it on the lease and on the ownership of the hospital, for example, since then.