IRELAND
Irish Times
Colm Keena
In light of public controversy over the proposed movement of the National Maternity Hospital from Holles Street to the St Vincent’s campus, Minister for Health Simon Harris has said he would like to see a debate about the possible divestment of health service assets held by religious congregations.
Hospital and disability services used by hundreds of thousands of Irish people every year, paid for by the State and by private health insurance, are owned by religious congregations motivated by their Catholic faith.
An examination by The Irish Times of the four largest providers of such services shows that they all have rules that require that their assets are transferred to other charitable bodies with a Catholic ethos in the event that the congregations decide to wind up the companies that run these services.
With many of the congregations now seriously reduced in numbers, and their remaining members elderly, the hospitals and other services controlled by these orders are likely to be transferred to trusts and other such charitable entities, with a stated Catholic ethos, over the coming years.
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