Justice Minister Helen McEntee has said she will back Health Minister Stephen Donnelly’s plan for the new National Maternity Hospital having previously asked for more time to consider the move.
Minister Donnelly met with Fine Gael TDs and Ministers on Tuesday night.
Speaking following the meeting, Justice Minister Helen McEntee said she is now convinced that the hospital will provide clinical and operational independence.
She said: “There are absolutely no circumstances under which I as a legislator but as a young mother, as a young woman, would agree to anything other than a world class national maternity hospital, one that provides absolute clinical and operational independence but also one that provides services that women of this country are legally entitled to.
“And that is maternity services, it’s post-natal care, that is gender reassignment, that is access to assisted human reproduction, it’s access to safe abortion.
“And I am absolutely convinced and I am certainly reassured by the discussion that the proposal by Minister Donnelly will do all of that,” she told RTÉ.
Minister Donnelly was also meeting with Green Party TDs on Tuesday night.
Tourism Minister Catherine Martin said earlier on Tuesday that the project is one of “such significance that there should be transparency at its very heart.”
Minister Martin was one of a number of female Cabinet Ministers who initially put a halt to Minister Donnelly’s memo getting the green light at last week’s Cabinet meeting.
However, two members of the HSE board have restated their concerns about the planned relocation of the new National Maternity Hospital.
Professor Deirdre Madden and Dr Sarah McLoughlin explained in a letter to the Dáils Health Committee why they dissented from a HSE decision to approve the legal documents for the hospital move.
They said they believed there should be “absolute clarity on the Church and State” notwithstanding the transfer of shares from the Religious Sisters of Charity to St Vincent’s.
The letter read: “This would be better achieved if the State owned the land on which the hospital will be built”.
They also said the statement from St Vincent’s that they must own the land is “unsatisfactory.”
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly will also appear before the Health Committee on Wednesday morning to face questioning from TDs.
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