Bríd Smith calls for fully state-run national maternity hospital

First of all, Professor Higgins, I'm quite alarmed at your tone that you think that somehow we are being over the top, emotive, and that we're trying to make out that the church are going to come in and steal the entire agenda. I think you've got it absolutely wrong. And just let me say very briefly, I was a young woman who grew up in the early 1980s. I had an abortion when I was a young woman and I had to go to Liverpool for it. I campaigned against the Eighth Amendment when I was a young woman and then I lived through the years that saw the darkest of things done to women, from the Kerry Babies to Safita Halapalabar. And that runs deep. And it runs deep because at the basis of all that, I don't know if you've ever read Olivia Leary's wonderful book called Masterminds of the Right, and she traces succinctly the shadowy forces that brought in that referendum and later the Maastricht protocol which stopped abortion coming into our country. And they didn't wear habits and they weren't traipsing around corridors with veils on them. They were actually top officials linked to organisations like Opus Dei and the Knights of Columbanus. They were deeply embedded in the health service, deeply embedded in the civil service, and they saw to it that Ireland maintained an extraordinary conservative agenda in relation to women's reproductive rights. Now, we've broken from that. But people like me, and probably not so much the younger generation who didn't live through it, have a bitter taste in our mouth. And we want to see a national maternity hospital that is truly, fully owned and run by the state. Now, and I have to dispute what you're saying about it being owned by, you know, according to the lease, and not my dispute, but read St. Vincent's Healthcare Fact Sheet. And, you know, I've read it out already in the Dáil record, but they actually dispute everything you own. Who owns the land? This is their question that the new national maternity hospital will be built on. The land is owned by St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. Who will run the hospital? The hospital will be run as part of St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. So, look, these are questions that we've spent the week teasing out, and we've got some clarity on some things, and we haven't got clarity on a lot more. But I'm delighted to hear you say that you would welcome the introduction of definition into those documents for that very worrying clause on clinical, what's it called again? Clinical appropriate, we worry about that, because who says whether it's appropriate or not that somebody has, you know, sterilisation or an abortion? Who says it's appropriate or not how they have their baby? If it's not the woman, if she doesn't have a say in it, then who is telling her what to do with her body? So, this is why we have the worries, and I really hope you accept that in bona fide. And I think the world of St. Vincent's, I think the world of these doctors, I've met Jenny the other night in the RTE studio, I've nothing against you, and it is not personal. But you have to understand where this stems from, and it's totally legitimate. Deputy Smith, first of all, may I apologise. The emotive misunderstandings were not in reference to anyone in this room, but over the last couple of weeks, I do believe that terms like the nuns, public juridic body, private, they're being used to try and convey that there is some shadowy figures there. And I think now that the narrative has moved away from the nuns, because the nuns have divested their interest in St. Vincent's, it's not a topic of conversation anymore. But now we're moving to private practice, and I just want to correct that, because I do think the public have a right to factual, accurate truths about this debate. And I think it is a very important debate. And I am aware of the hurt that has been caused, and I said it in my speech, I'm aware of the hurt that have been caused to women and their families for decades in this country. But I'm representing a group of people, clinicians, nurses, midwives, doctors, administrative staff, who dedicate their lives to the provision of all services that are legally permissible within the state. And those same clinicians are the clinicians that wrote to the Taoiseach and have advocated on behalf of women's rights during the repeal and many other situations. They're the clinicians that are being portrayed as people who won't or who will decide what's appropriate or not. They provide everything. The hospital that we work in provides everything. It happens to be a voluntary hospital. And as has been stated several times, the hospitals that aren't provided a full termination of pregnancy service, as an example, are all state-run, state-owned, state-funded hospitals. A week after the introduction of the legislation, we were providing the service across all streams of the legislation. So I'm defending my colleagues when I say... I accept that, but I believe you should also defend the women of Ireland who come into your wards every day. And the women of Ireland have concerns. And I'm representing my constituents. And that's what we're doing here. But just to say to you, in the corridors yesterday, the Minister told me that most of the hospitals who are not providing abortion, the HSE hospitals, the reason is funding. The HSE aren't funding it properly. That is what the Minister told me. I need to move on. I need to move on. I need to move on. You