I welcome this Sinn Féin motion. The Government is displaying incredible disrespect for this Parliament and for democracy by its actions. We have already had three Private Members' motions calling for full public ownership of the new national maternity hospital. The Government has voted in favour of those motions. Today's is the latest. The Government is faced with a motion which states that we must pursue the full realisation of the promise that was made by the Religious Sisters of Charity to gift the land to the …

Is the Government not ashamed of that? What have matters come to that the Government is behaving in such an utterly disrespectful way? I wish the Minister was here. I do not know where he is. He is probably doing more media appearances. He is completely undermining this Parliament and our democracy. We were told two weeks ago that there was going to be a pause and an opportunity to address the key issues of public ownership and the phrase "clinically appropriate", which nobody understands. We know after yesterday's…

It is not a Nightingale ward.

I want to go back to the term “clinically appropriate” and the reason there is no definition of it. That is particularly baffling given that there are six pages of definitions in the lease agreement. Across all of the other legal documents that have been released, there are pages and pages of definitions. Why is there no definition of the term “clinically appropriate” given the confusion that seems to exist around it?

That is the very point. It is baffling that the Minister is not prepared to provide a definition. I put it to him that there is no equivalence between the phrase “clinically appropriate” and names of different branches of medicine. That is a completely different thing. The term “clinically appropriate” is open to ambiguity. Even those who are in favour of this project are interpreting it in different ways. For example, the obstetrician, Professor Mary Higgins, says that it means future-proofing. However, that is no…

A definition in the legal document is needed.

The Minister’s agreeability is welcome, but the reality is that all of the indications are that the Cabinet will sign off on this project or deal next Tuesday. The Minister has accepted that we have a point, that there is confusion and there are problems associated with this phrase. He is saying he is prepared to provide a definition of that to the committee and he will send us a note on it. Why then would he not include a definition in the legal documents? That could be done in a matter of minutes. Would he regard…

Okay.

The Minister seems to be indicating that he agrees with Deputies on this side of the House that there are problems and ambiguity with that phrase. He is prepared to provide a definition of that to the committee. In that case, I cannot understand why he is not prepared to include a definition of that in the legal documents, especially given that there are pages and pages of definitions. He says he does not believe that would substantially change the deal.

Will he now give the matter consideration? Rather than just being pleasant about it, can he give some kind of commitment that he will take steps to include a definition of that phrase in the legal documents? That would solve this problem to a large extent.

He has the solution here in his hands. Is he prepared to do that?

The Minister accepts them.

We need more than a reflection.

We need a commitment.

Will the Minister pursue changes to the legal document?

This is a critical point.

Will the Minister pursue changes?

Otherwise what he is saying is meaningless.

Will the Minister answer a question? Why is it beyond the capability of this Government - and why was it beyond that of the two previous Fine Gael-led Governments - to countenance a State-owned and controlled national maternity hospital, built on State lands and through the use of State funds? The Minister once agreed that this was the only credible outcome. In 2017, he told the Dáil that the new maternity hospital "should involve not the creation of a lease arrangement but rather the transfer of ownership of the s…

The Minister is being quite disingenuous. This project has been delayed for almost a decade. Four successive Ministers for Health were incapable of delivering the project in a way that would satisfy the public in terms of the independence of the hospital and the protection of a massive public investment. The Minister referred to co-location. Nobody argues about that. This is about so much more than co-location, however. It is about a takeover. Does the Minister realise, because I do not think he does, that the new …