Hospital must be free from religious inf luence, says Howlin
TD hits out as bishop says nuns must ‘obey’ Church
LABOUR leader Brendan Howlin insisted that the new National Maternity Hospital must be owned by the State and free from any religious influence.
The Wexford TD added to the growing number of calls for the Sisters of Charity to be blocked from owning the €300million hospital which is to be built on the nuns’ Elm Park site.
But fears are now growing for the future of the hospital, planned for the St Vincent’s Hospital campus in south Dublin, after the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group (SVHG) said it was reviewing the deal struck with the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street.
Speaking to reporters at Labour’s conference yesterday, Mr Howlin said the hospital must be owned by the State or they should consider another site.
He also responded to comments made by Bishop Kevin Doran – that the Sisters of Charity will have to obey the rules of the Catholic Church if they become owners of the new maternity hospital.
Mr Howlin said: ‘I’ve no criticism of a Catholic bishop being faithful to Catholic teaching. The issue is whether a new institute like a national maternity hospital, which will cater for generations of women and families to come, should be in Catholic ownership or whether it should be in democratic State ownership.
‘The vast majority of the Irish people will want it be democratically ownership.’
The Sisters of Charity own the SVHG, whose board is directly answerable to the order and is tasked with running the hospital in accordance with its principles and ethos. It is feared the nuns could prevent medical abortions, vasectomies and IVF.
The bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran told a Sunday newspaper the Sisters of Charity will have to obey the rules of the Catholic Church. He referred to three tenets of canon law which decree that land held by religious institutions is ‘ecclesiastical property’ over which the Pope has primacy of governance. Fr Doran told the The Sunday Times: ‘A healthcare organisation bearing the name Catholic, while offering care to all who need it, has a special responsibility… to Catholic teachings about the value of human life and the dignity and the ultimate destiny of the human person.’
The bishop, who chairs the hierarchy’s committee on bio-ethics, added: ‘Public funding, while it brings with it other legal and moral obligations, does not change that responsibility.’
He said he was speaking in general terms as the National Maternity Hospital is not in his diocese and he was unfamiliar with the legal relationship between the Sisters of Charity and the SVHG. The nuns are the sole owners of the company.
The SVHG’s website says the board of directors at St Vincent’s University Hospital ‘develops the hospital and its services in accordance with the principles and ethics of the Congregation of the Religious Sisters of Charity’.
On Saturday, Health Minister Simon Harris said there is no plan
‘Ecclesiastical property’ She called Harris ‘hapless, hopeless’
B for the now under-threat merger between the two hospitals. He said: ‘It is not good enough for women to have to put up with delivering their babies in Holles Street, which the Master very clearly says is not fit for purpose.’
In November, Mr Harris posed for photos with the Master of Holles Street Rhona Mahony and Kay Connolly, chief operating officer of St Vincent’s University Hospital, as they launched the agreement. At that time, Mr Harris did not publicly raise any concerns. However, as outrage mounted this week, he formally asked HSE boss Tony O’Brien for further legal clarifications and reassurances.
It is understood that the reason St Vincent’s are now reconsidering their position is because of this intervention by the minister.
The board of St Vincent’s hospital are due to meet in the coming weeks to discuss the issue.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, Fine Gael TD Colm Brophy said the view of Bishop Doran will not override the legal agreement reached with the religious order.
As of last night, almost 89,000 people signed an online petition calling on the Government to prevent the nuns from taking sole ownership of the hospital by way of a subsidiary company owned by the SVHG. Meanwhile, opposition TDs criticised Mr Harris’s handling of the controversy yesterday with former Labour leader Joan Burton calling him ‘hapless, helpless and hopeless’. Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said Mr Harris increasingly resembled a minister who had lost control of his department.
But Government Chief Chip Regina Doherty said the Cabinet were still fully committed to building the new maternity hospital and said she hoped the issue will be resolved.
She accepted ‘feathers had been ruffled’, referring to the board of the hospital, including the Sisters of Charity.
She told RTÉ’s This Week yesterday: ‘I think Simon [Harris] is very, very aware of the fragility of this particular negotiation, his premise is that he wants to build a national maternity hospital, state of the art, for all of the women and children in this country. I know he has his heart and his ambitions in the right place.
‘I do accept people’s feathers have been ruffled this week and I don’t mean the Irish people I mean the people around the table, that needs to be sorted out. You’ve got the board having their members meeting next week and I hope we can resolve this.’