North Wicklow Together Call Out Donnelly

The kick inside

atest press release from North Wicklow Together For Choice & Equality, issued on Friday, June 4th 2021…

Does Minister Donnelly’s guarantee that all reproductive healthcare services will be available to the women of Wicklow resolve concerns on the ownership & governance of the new National Maternity Hospital?

North Wicklow Together for Choice and Equality welcomes Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly’s strong statement during the Motion on Maternity Services, June 2nd, “I will not countenance any new maternity hospital that has any governance or influence whatsoever involving any religious ethos. That is an absolute commitment. Services will be provided in accordance with the law and national policies.” However, the evidence contradicts Minister Donnelly’s statement.

We call on the Minister to meet with the Campaign Against Church Ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital to answer questions on the ownership and governance of the new National Maternity Hospital.

The Mulvey Agreement sets out that St. Vincent’s Holdings CLG, 100% owned by the Sisters of Charity, will own the hospital and the land that the new National Maternity Hospital is built upon. This private company, with its own board of directors, will govern the hospital that the government will build at a revised estimate cost of €500m, with additional hundreds of millions to outfit plus ongoing operational costs. All paid for by the taxpayer to be the gifted to a private entity.

The constitution of St. Vincent’s Holdings CLG, submitted to the Charities Registrar, sets out its core values which are identical to those of St. Vincent’s Hospital and of the Sisters of Charity.

Presently, St. Vincent’s Hospital DO NOT provide medical treatment in contradiction to the core values of the Sisters of Charity. This includes vasectomy for family planning and contraception. St. Vincent’s Hospital staff are obligated in their employment contracts to adher to the ethos of the hospital; i.e. the core values of the Sisters of Charity.

Clause 5.11 of St Vincent’s Holdings’ Constitution gives the directors the power to “acquire, hold, sell, manage, lease, mortgage, or dispose of all or any part of the property of the Company…” including, obviously, the new NMH.

As per a 2019 Government report, a private religious company cannot be compelled to provide healthcare services in contradiction to its ethos. Therefore, once the Government gifts the new National Maternity Hospital to St. Vincent’s Holdings CLG, it will have no legal avenue to deliver on its guarantee that all healthcare services will be available to the women of Wicklow, of which the new National Maternity Hospital will be the primary maternity hospital all the way to the South of the county.

As the members of religious orders are ageing and their numbers declining, it has been a regular occurrence worldwide over the last couple of decades for the orders to set up lay succession organisations.

Without exception anywhere in the world, the Holy See has stipulated that Catholic ethos must be maintained in these organisations.

We are being asked to believe that the Sisters of Charity’s transfer will be the sole exception.

Therefore, we cannot take Minister’s Donnelly statement in good faith when everything we know contradicts his guarantee.

We call for the proposed new publicly-funded National Maternity Hospital to be constructed on land vested in the State; and that, to guarantee its secular ethos, the new facility be fully owned and governed by the State.

North Wicklow Together for Choice and Equality is a group of volunteers using the momentum of the North Wicklow Together for Yes group fight for equality and human rights in the North Wicklow area, and they can be contacted on 0872032348 or [email protected].