The Irish Times view on the National Maternity Hospital: Potential for progress

A new plan to break the deadlock over the future National Maternity Hospital embraces legal measures requiring it to carry out all medical procedures allowed under Irish law. Such provisions will be incorporated into the hospital’s HSE licence, the aim being to give certainty that abortion, sterilisation and IVF will be provided at the hospital.

Such measures are unlikely ever to satisfy the most ardent critics of the project, who remain concerned about what they characterise as Vatican overreach in a hospital built on land owned by the Religious Sisters of Charity. But there is potential here, if the agreement is robust, to provide a legal bulwark to ensure that all procedures permissible in the State are provided. The Minister for Health should finalise the proposals, open them up to forensic scrutiny and proceed swiftly to the next phase. After nine years of disagreement, there should be no further delay.

Only an outline of the latest plan has been made public. Yet the central thrust is clear. The Government has spurned demands to compulsorily acquire the Elm Park site or move to State property elsewhere. Talks are well advanced on a deal with St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, the body which will take ownership of the sisters’ land and lease it to the State for 299 years. The HSE will be the owner of the building, the National Maternity Hospital the operator. The agreement will emphasise that the hospital will be governed under State law, not canon law. The number of public interest directors on its board will also be increased. The sisters, for their part, insist they have not been involved in discussions on the new hospital for years and will have no role in its future.

As it stands, the agreement is unlikely to set down a list of specific procedures that can be carried out. That has drawn criticism. The contrary argument, however, is that a list might complicate the introduction of new procedures in the future. That could lead to an ongoing requirement as medical practice evolves to keep reopening the hospital’s founding documents, which are supposed to direct its work for centuries.