I watched it very carefully

They said the State.

They said the State.

Deputy Cullinane should check the record.

I apologise to colleagues as unfortunately, I must leave straight after this speech but the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, will be here. It has been agreed by all sides that we urgently need a new, state-of-the-art, secular, public, co-located national maternity hospital that provides all healthcare services to women and infants. This morning, that is exactly what the Government agreed to. The new hospital will radically improve access to the best possible healthcare. It will provide specialist care for women vi…

I might be sharing time with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. The proposed new building for the National Maternity Hospital is probably the most important investment in women's healthcare in a generation. It is widely agreed that the midwives, nurses and doctors in Holles Street provide great care and that they are leaders in advancing women's healthcare. After repeal, Holles Street was one of the first hospitals to provide termination services. It was one of the first sites for the new specialist menopause …

I am sorry. I beg the Deputy's pardon. I thought the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, was coming in. I am so sorry.

My understanding is the State has been involved since the then Minister, James Reilly, first announced there was to be co-location at the St. Vincent's site in 2013.

The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, has also been involved.

The engagement was very intense. The parties involved were the HSE, the Department of Health, St. Vincent's Healthcare Group and the National Maternity Hospital.

Pretty much-----

They spanned most of the time I have been in office.

When I came into office, the constitution of the new hospital had not been written. The offer of leasehold ownership was for 99 years with an option to extend this by 50 years to 149 years.

The partnership being proposed is complex. I believe we all accept that. It is a clinical partnership between two voluntary hospitals but the State has a role, generally through the HSE. The negotiations were very complex. There were many rounds of talks and when I-----

It is a very large partnership. If any of us were to look at a proposed partnership involving assets potentially worth several billion euro, we would find that lawyers had pored over all the documents and, in many cases, the level of complexity-----

I will just finish on this. In such cases, the level of complexity at a corporate level would be far in excess of what we see in the number of documents we have now.

If we were building on public land, by definition, there would be no lease.

It is.

It was for the same reason we all wanted that. Look at the debate we are having. People have very understandable concerns. None of us is expected to walk around knowing the difference between rent, leasehold ownership and freehold ownership. People are not expected to know that apartments are typically bought under leasehold ownership whereas houses tend to be bought under freehold ownership.

It is a fair question but I disagree with the Deputy's characterisation. I am open to correction if the record shows otherwise but I believe my position, which I have stated very freely on many occasions, has always been that I would prefer public ownership and to own the freehold. The Minister, Deputy Harris, and I both asked for that.