Developments over recent days have just compounded our concerns about the proposed new national maternity hospital. Our concerns persist. They are valid and legitimate concerns that remain around the ownership, control and governance of the proposed hospital. The core question for the Labour Party remains that of ownership. It is freehold ownership. We are talking about ownership in perpetuity. That is the difference between public ownership in perpetuity and the leasehold arrangement, a "complicated" arrangement, …

-----we believe the hospital must be built on publicly-owned land. Without that freehold public ownership, our concerns about control and governance remain. They are concerns that arise from any close reading of the text of the documents that have been published. They are around the €850,000 penalty rent clause, the right of the landlord to appoint directors, the right of those directors to nominate a rotating chairperson and the language of "clinically appropriate", language that is not used to qualify the Ministe…

-----then why not put the matter beyond legal doubt and place the site in public ownership? Seek that the site be gifted to the State or to be sold at a nominal fee to the State, as was the original plan. Why, back in 2017, did the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, decide to proceed with this convoluted legal arrangement, rather than insisting then, as the Labour Party said he should, that the site be transferred into public ownership? Why, in 2017, was a decision made to proceed with this convoluted Byzanti…

I am asking about this Government.

I am seeking clarity on the issues and I am certainly not questioning the Taoiseach's bona fides. All of us want to see a new, state of the art, modern National Maternity Hospital but we want to see it done right. We do not want to see the mistakes of the past repeated whereby the State has poured millions of euro into maintaining publicly funded hospitals and schools on land that remains in the ownership of religious orders or their successor lay-run companies. That is what we do not want to see. We are happy to e…

We protested in 2016.

We have consistently raised this for five years.

I also raise the issue of better services for children with educational needs, in particular for children with autism. I was glad to join the Families United for Services and Support protest outside the Dáil on last Friday. I heard some powerful testimonies from parents and from young adults who had been failed by a system that simply could not provide them with the supports they needed to ensure their right to an education was vindicated. This is a serious matter. We are seeing an inconsistent level of services be…

I would like to raise the issue of the long delays in the roll-out of free GP care for children. In 2015, funding was secured for the extension of free GP care to all children under 12 but this was not rolled out. Again in 2020, the then Minister, Deputy Harris, announced free GP care for children aged 12 and under on a phased basis, with six- and seven-year-olds first. In the most recent budget, the current Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, confirmed again that funding would be put in place for the extension o…

We all share the view the Taoiseach expressed yesterday that it is now incumbent, following the elections, that political parties in Northern Ireland would form a functioning Executive. There are seriously worrying developments, with the DUP demanding the removal and replacement of the protocol, it appears, before it returns to the Executive and with reports stating that the British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, will scrap parts of the protocol as soon as next week. Could the Taoiseach confirm whether he has had an…

On behalf of the Labour Party, I welcome the opportunity to speak today to mark Europe Day. It is a particularly auspicious date as today we also mark 50 years since the referendum to join the then European Economic Community was held and passed in Ireland. Since then the EU has driven social and economic change across Ireland, for the most part for the better. In particular, the equal rights of women have been advanced through the passage of EU laws. There have also been difficulties, of course, and the Labour Par…

I outlined yesterday the ongoing concerns the Labour Party has regarding the ownership, governance and control of the proposed new national maternity hospital. We welcomed the publication of certain relevant documents on the HSE website and the Government delaying the decision in this regard. Having listened to the exchanges this morning, however, it seems the Government is not proposing to make any changes. Yet we are still lacking some crucial information. We have still not seen the details of any correspondence …

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the law relating to the determination, declaration and review of a national minimum hourly rate of pay for employees so as to arrive at and thereafter preserve an hourly rate that represents a living income; and to provide for related matters. It is timely that I seek to introduce this Bill today, because last weekend we marked May Day when across the world we celebrate workers and advances and progress on workers' rights, but also note what…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I would like to share time with my colleague, Deputy Duncan Smith. I thank the Ministers, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, Coveney and O'Gorman, for updating us on the Government's response to Russian war of brutal aggression on a peaceful democratic country. I will start by commending the Government on the generosity of spirit that it and the Irish people have shown in their approach in offering support and sanctuary to those fleeing the war in Ukraine. We in the Labour Party will stand in solidarity with the people of Ukr…

I too want to raise the issue of the National Maternity Hospital. I welcome the decision by Cabinet last night to delay, as I understand it, by at least two weeks, the making of any final decision. I welcome the Minister's commitment to appear before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health, as we had asked. Indeed, I welcome the ongoing publication of documents on the HSE website. I read the documents that were up last night. I note another one this morning. That is important but the concerns around ownership, con…

Why is it not simply in public ownership?

All of us want decent, proper, effective healthcare for women, and particularly for women requiring access to reproductive healthcare, maternity care and gynaecological care. I am not questioning anyone's bona fides and I do not think it is helpful to do so but legitimate concerns remain around ownership, governance and control. Positive changes have been made over the years, largely as a result of Opposition pressure and of pressure from activists and women seeking improvements in services and seeking to ensure we…

We are all very conscious of the legacy of our schools and hospitals that have been funded by the State but remain in the ownership of religious orders or their successor or proxy companies. We are all very conscious of that. We need to do better with the new national maternity hospital and with the €1 billion of public money that is to be put into it. We need to ensure women, and all of us, have access to the healthcare we need in the 21st century. That is why we are putting forward these questions. We are doing s…

-----and to improve healthcare for women in this country.