Varadkar calls for calm and insists new hospital must be built

Breaking News
April 23, 2017

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/varadkar-calls-for-calm-and-insists-new-hospital-must-be-built-786774.html

Update: 11.35am: The Minister for Social Protection has called for calm heads to prevail amidst controversy over the new national maternity Hospital.

Leo Varadkar insists the facility - which is to be built on land owned by the Sisters of Charity - will have clinical independence.

He has given his backing to Simon Harris saying the Ministry is the only position in cabinet that has a lot of responsibility but lacks in authority.

Minister Varadkar who formerly worked at the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street says the new facility urgently needs to go ahead.

Earlier: Pressure is mounting on the Minister for Health over his handling of the ownership of the new national maternity hospital.

Over 86,000 people have signed a petition calling on Simon Harris to prevent the Sisters of Charity from taking ownership of the facility.

It comes as the Sunday Independent claims legal guarantees have been enshrined in the deal to protect the ethos of the hospital once it moves to the St Vincent's site in Dublin.

According to the newspaper Kieran Mulvey who negotiated the agreement says the situation risk quickly turning into the same situation as the decades long wait for a National Children's Hospital.

However Siobhan O'Donoghue of campaign group UpLift says the public won't stand for a religious order owning the facility: “The Sisters of Charity owe €3m to the survivors and victims of the Magdalene Laundries and are going to have ownership of a maternity service.

“It is just not acceptable and the Irish public are just outraged and I think Simon Harris, by statements he has made the last few days, is under pressure.”