Yesterday I raised with the Taoiseach the ongoing concerns of the Labour Party in respect of the ownership, control and governance of the new national maternity hospital. Since then, I know the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, has been engaging with the Joint Committee on Health. Indeed, the parliamentary Labour Party looks forward to engaging with him. However, we have also seen the publication last night of a statement from Professor Deirdre Madden and Dr. Sarah McLoughlin in which they set out their concerns in respect of ownership, control and governance in more detail and point out the difference between freehold and leasehold ownership. The concerns they have set out exactly reflect the concerns the Labour Party has been expressing. They reminded us that in 2018 the Day report, produced by the independent review group commissioned by the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, recommended that the State should own the land on which hospitals and schools are built. The question remains as to why this recommendation was not followed then. Why are these Byzantine legal arrangements being favoured over the straightforward and clear-cut arrangement whereby the land would be gifted to the State? Why can it not be in public ownership and freehold?

I answered that question earlier, but the lease does give effective ownership to the State. In my view, there is no question about that. I have read the letters from Professor Deirdre Madden and Dr. Sarah McLoughlin. Again I make the point that it is not clear to me at all and no one has actually specifically explained from their perspective - from Deputy Bacik's perspective, for example - what the material difference is between the 300-year lease and a freehold ownership in the context of all legally permissible services being made available at the hospital, given the constitution of the hospital, the operating licence from the HSE to the hospital, the ministerial powers in the golden share to enforce the reserved powers of the constitution, the three members of the State appointed by the Minister of the day who will be on the board along with three from the national maternity hospital, and all the correspondence from every senior midwife in Ireland now, directors of midwifery-----

I thank the Taoiseach. I am moving on.

-----saying this should go ahead.

It is the conditionality that is the difference.

But the conditionality only relates-----

We are over time. Much as I would like to let it run, I call Deputy Cian O'Callaghan.

-----to the utilisation of the site, which is not an imposition on the maternity hospital, if you read the-----