Mixed reaction to announcement of Rome assent to transfer of site at St Vincent’s

The announcement today that the Vatican had approved a decision by the Sisters of Charity to transfer ownership of the St Vincent's Healthcare Group to a new independent charitable body was believed to have cleared the way for building of a new National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park in Dublin.

Health sources indicated the announcement by the order was significant but there was “still a bit of work to do in terms of proceeding” with the project. Despite the economic challenges posed by the Covid-19 crisis, the capital budget from which the new hospital would be funded remains “largely unaffected”.

A spokesman for the National Maternity Hospital said they now “look forward to the main build commencing without delay.”

Meanwhile, former Master of the National Maternity Hospital Dr Peter Boylan said there remained a "need to know who the real owners of the St Vincent's Hospital Group (SVH CLG) are." The relevant "memorandum and articles of association need to be seen," he said.

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“What precise area of land is being alienated [transferred]?” he asked, and he questioned whether it would include the car park, St Vincent’s Private Hospital and St Michael’s Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. He believed correspondence on the matter between the Sisters of Charity and the Vatican “should be placed in the public domain and made available for inspection.”

In his view governance arrangements for the new National Maternity Hospital should be the same as those for the new National Children’s Hospital which is co-located with St James’s Hospital, with “separate governance, a different board, separate clinical governance, and a separate budget,” he said.

“We need more clarity on what it (Sisters of Charity announcement) actually means,” he said.

Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall s welcomed the Sisters’ announcement but pointed out that the new arrangement “does not constitute public ownership of the site.”

She said today’s development “should be seen as just the first stage in a process where SVH CLG should now be required to transfer ownership of the site to the State. The public investment in the new hospital, of up to €500m, must be protected by public ownership of the site on which it is built.”

A new National Maternity Hospital was “badly needed and it is regrettable that it is taking so long to get to a situation where this much needed project can proceed. Today’s announcement can only be seen as stage one of a process where the State can legally own this site and stage two must entail the ownership of the site transferring to State,” she said.

“We also need assurances that the governance structure of the new maternity hospital will be fully independent and separate to the corporate structure of St Vincent’s Holdings CLG. The governance structure proposed in the Mulvey report does not provide that independence,” she said.

It had always been “patently clear that there could not be full public ownership of a hospital that was on privately owned grounds - whether religious or otherwise - and that such ownership would have significant implications for both the ethos of the hospital and the protection of the public purse.

“It would be a serious error for the Government to contemplate the handing over this valuable asset and would repeat the mistakes of the past where taxpayer funded health and education infrastructure is gifted to private interests,” she said.

The National Maternity Hospital spokesman said the hospital was "hugely appreciative of the role played by the Sisters of Charity in healthcare in Ireland over two centuries, culminating in the release of these hugely valuable healthcare assets," he said.

“We would like to pay tribute to the St Vincent’s Hospital Group, HSE Estates, the design team and our own personnel for the work done so far over a long period, and their continuing determination to realise this Government priority project,” he added.