Not only have they seen the contract, Holles Street has written the contract. It is one of the contracting parties-----

I ask for a minute or two. Deputy Shortall raised several points and made several statements. She asked why I was not looking up while she was speaking. It is because I was trying to write down verbatim the statements that she made. This goes to the heart of some of the debate. The Deputy said there are no guarantees around the independence of ethos or a secular ethos. There are such guarantees. The Deputy said that she wants the hospital to be publicly owned.

It will be so owned. The Deputy has said that the national maternity hospital will lose all its independence.

This is simply a false statement.

It has absolutely no basis in fact. The Deputy has said that it would be handed over into private hands. Again, this is not true.

The Deputy said that it will be a maternity hospital controlled by a religious entity.

The Deputy is obviously free to express her views, but these statements are simply not true and are causing an awful lot of concern among people-----

-----who quite rightly want to know that there is an independent hospital.

The Deputy said that we are-----

The Deputy said that we are handing over a billion euro asset. We are not handing over a billion euro asset to anybody.

We own the asset. The asset is the building. We will own the building when it is built and we will own it at all times. We will own everything inside the building.

We are simply not handing over a billion euro asset to anybody. I take it that the Deputy is genuinely concerned about the independence. I accept that but the statements she is making are simply-----

-----not true.

They are simply not true.

It will happen after I have brought it to the Government. The Government may decide to approve it or not to approve it.

Yes.

Indeed, it may choose not to accept the proposal that I bring. I do not know. All I can say is that I, as Minister for Health, have to bring the proposal to the Government. Deputy Shortall knows that.

She knows I have to do that.

To be clear, I never said that.

I thank Deputy Tully and Sinn Féin for tabling this motion and colleagues on all sides of the House for their contributions. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, wanted to be here this evening and she apologises for her absence. As she said in the House three weeks ago to the day, the matters being discussed at that time, and which are raised again in the Private Members' motion, are hugely important and require a ruthless and ambitious focus on our health services and on the implementation of the progressing di…