Over the past week Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said he has issues with the ownership of the new national maternity hospital site at Elm Park.
He said the hospital would not be built on State-owned land but will instead be the subject of a 99-year lease with the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group. There would be an option for an extension.
When the group that runs St Vincent’s Hospital issued a statement and some supporting documentation yesterday, it showed that the previous government, a Fine Gael government, in 2017 had agreed to the 99-year lease.
There was a political problem for the Fine Gael side of Government arising from all that: why the flip-flop?
Jennifer Bray has been doing excellent reporting for The Irish Times on this ongoing saga over who owns, and who governs, the National Maternity Hospital.
In a way, it is the vehicle for a wider debate that is probably entering its endgame – the question over the separation of Church and State.
As Jennifer reports, St Vincent's Healthcare Group repeated it was not willing to sell the site. It states "for the delivery of integrated patient care on the Elm Park Campus, SVHG must retain ownership of the site".
The new maternity hospital will be co-located with the two St Vincent’s hospitals, the private and public. The group’s argument is that two sets of ownership will not allow seamless transfers of skill, care or information between the two hospitals.
Another concern is about governance of the hospital. While it is investing €800 million, the Government will have no members on the board of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group. Taoiseach Micheál Martin was one of several members of Government who yesterday said that was not acceptable.
While the Sisters of Charity have departed from St Vincent’s, campaigners have argued St Vincent’s still runs under a Catholic ethos and that some procedures are not allowed. This is denied by the group.
“All medical procedures, in accordance with the laws of the land, are available in SVHG hospitals, including pregnancy termination, tubal ligation and gender reassignment procedures,” it said in a statement.
“We are aware of renewed public controversy since last Thursday and a planned Dáil debate. This hospital is long overdue and we are more than willing to meet with the Government, should it wish to engage with us.”
For sure, the Government will try to get more independent State-appointed members onto the group’s board. But where can it go with State ownership of the site? St Vincent’s is digging its heels in.
The option of a compulsory purchase order has been raised but has been rejected by the Government. “We need to get real”, the Taoiseach retorted to Labour leader Alan Kelly, saying it would take years for that to complete. Kelly replied he had suggested a CPO as far back as 2017.
It’s become a saga and a mess – not quite inextricable but problematic on many different levels.
Donaldson has his Foinavon moment
So Jeffrey Donaldson had his Foinavon moment this week. Defeated by Edwin Poots in the leadership contest only a month ago, the DUP MP for Lagan Valley seemed to have no way back for the foreseeable future.
And then, unexpectedly, Poots’s leadership imploded over his naivety in agreeing a deal brokered by the British government and Sinn Féín over the Irish language legislation.
It was like the scene at the 23rd fence during the infamous 1967 Grand National when a loose horse took out all of the front runners in a moment of chaos.
A rank outsider called Foinavon, about 100 metres behind, managed to evade the melee, jump the fence and ride home to victory for probably the most unexpected victory in the long history of the famous Aintree race.
The high-profile Donaldson could hardly be described as a rank outsider but the manner of his rise to the leadership was very unexpected indeed.
But will his style of leadership be different? Newton Emerson in his column on Monday made some really important distinctions and points. He said the difference between 'liberal' and 'conservative' factions in the DUP was a relative one.
He also pointed out that Poots’s problem was not his ideology but was more to do with the fact he readily agreed to a deal that was a concession to Sinn Féin, thus failing to use strong leverage that could force changes to the protocol.
The protocol is where the focus will lie. Freya McClements reported the new leader said he intended to speak to the UK prime minister “at the earliest opportunity” about the Northern Ireland protocol.
Donaldson added he would emphasise it is “not realistic to expect stability” when every unionist representative in the devolved institutions opposes the Northern Ireland protocol.
But there was also some emollient language: Freya noted Donaldson also spoke of the need for reconciliation and healing within unionism and the wider community, saying although the task ahead was “great” and he did “not underestimate the challenge”, he knew “the overwhelming majority of people who live here want Northern Ireland to keep moving forward”.
That, at least, was positive.
Best reads
Seats upstairs only on Miriam Lord's coach-and-four as she drives it through the Fine Gael and Sinn Féin battle buses in Dublin Bay South.
Cormac McQuinn has got an advance on the HSE's opening statement to the health committee on the ongoing impact of the cyber-attack on its computer systems.
Jennifer Bray reports that booster shots will be needed "for a very high proportion of the population over the comings months and next year".
Marie O'Halloran reports the Government will introduce emergency legislation next week to facilitate outdoor drinking.
Playbook
In the Dáil Leaders Questions is at 12.00, and you can be sure the national maternity hospital site will be at the centre of things.
The Residential Tenancies Bill is a Covid-driven Bill that limits the deposits tenants pay to landlords and provides for adequate minimum notice.
Legislation to extend the Special Criminal Court through the Offences against the State Act will be debated in the Dáil this afternoon. Sinn Féin abstained last year for the first time, and I daresay it will do so again. One of the reasons is that a review of the operation of the emergency powers has yet to be completed. So excuse the awful pun, but the jury will be out until then.
The third piece of legislation to be debated is a hangover from the last Dáil. It will provide for a ban of secondary selling of tickets for events, often at grossly inflated prices.
Pick of the committees include the joint committee on EU affairs, which welcomes (virtually) members of the House of Lords sub-committee on the Northern Ireland protocol.
The transport committee hears further evidence of the impact of Aer Lingus’s withdrawal of a base from Shannon Airport, while the tourism committee will hear of the impact of Covid-19 on the entertainment sector.
