Minister Simon Harris: Nuns won’t be running hospital
Neither was there a need to rush the project because a decision on planning was unlikely before year end.
“I don’t believe the November agreement needs to be changed.
“This new hospital will have more safeguards in place and every single health service legally available in Ireland will be available in that hospital,” he said.
Mr Harris said his concern now is “to make sure that as we put in place legal and contractual arrangements — and these are not in place yet — we’re only at the planning permission stage — to make sure clinical independence is underpinned in the contract just as envisaged in the agreement” and “to make sure that the financial investment made by the State is protected”.
Mr Harris said he had “no interest, nor does anyone in government, of any private entity, religious or otherwise, profiting off this transaction”.
“I’ve heard a lot of misinformation in recent days — nuns won’t be running the hospital. Nuns won’t be profiting from the hospital.”
However a report in yesterday’s Sunday Times quoting the Bishop of Elphin is at odds with the minister’s claims.
Kevin Doran is quoted as saying “a healthcare organisation bearing the name Catholic... has a special responsibility... to Catholic teachings about the value of human life”.
“Public funding, while it brings with it other legal and moral obligations, does not change that responsibility.”
Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin said the State needed to have full ownership “or we have to look for another site”.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said that the hospital “has to be free of any specific religious ethos”.
He also said there was a need for clarity as to why discussions around an unencumbered transfer of the St Vincent’s site to the state appeared not to have taken place.
“To be fair there is probably another dimension to this and it’s the commercial dimension, and I think we need full transparency,” he said.
Details of the November agreement are due to be presented to the Oireachtas health committee this week.
The board of the healthcare group — currently reviewing the hospital relocation plan on foot of displeasure with the views expressed by the minister and other politicians during the week — is also due to meet this week.
Mr Harris said that he “respects the fact that St Vincent’s Healthcare Group said they now wish to reflect on the situation”.
“Let them take their time to do that because there is no need to rush here — we have a planning application in with An Bord Pleanála and that won’t be decided on probably ’til towards the end of the year,” he said.
