The NMH at St. Vincents

So basicly people with money can get anything done in a private hospital. If the new hospital gets built there no operations that could be seen as contraception will be carried out. Does that mean women cannot get iuds without going to a private hospital. I'm not a medical expert. Are there no such operations carried out at public hospitals ? I don't think the Nuns should have total control over all medical operations especially since its the government that ll be spending millions of euros to pay the staff and the cost of building a hospital , which is probably 100s of millions of euros. I don't think the government actually expects women nowadays to have more than 2 or 3 children , this is not the 80s.

I saw that reported on VMN last night and I'm surprised there's been very little reaction to the fact Stephen Donnelly either mislead the Dail or yet again had a bout of forgetfulness.

He was asked directly in the Dail had he personally asked SVHG if the site could be purchased and his catagorical answer was yes. (VMN played the Dail exchange)

Yesterday Roisin Shorthall asked the Chairman of SVHG was the purchase of the Site discussed and in essence he said no, apart from an aside during discussion with the HSE a number of years ago, it's not the HSE actually making any decisions its the Department of Health and Government.

There's more hole's in the Governments story on this matter than swiss cheese.

It's likely to proceed but Donnelly has some explaining to do.

Why are they trying to sell the myth that the nuns are divested from control?

From what I can see they are still on the board of the hospital.

So they have 2 mechanism to deny people the care they need:

* Interfere with hiring and firing, indirectly influence clinical decisions

* Threaten the government with the rent increase (via lawyers) - this will be more effective once the next recession hits

The vatican have not atoned fully for their crimes (or even paid compensation) - we can't allow them to have this influence.

Think about it - the churches are empty. Why do the rest of us have to suffer for the beliefs of a tiny portion of society?

Also what exactly are government negotiators supposed to have won in the current round of negotiations?

Not being ridiculous at all but just to point out it should read 2052.

Fast forward 10, 20, 30 years when the sh*t hits the fan... the politicians deciding this today will be long, long gone and some six feet under the ground.

So the public will get the usual palaver then from whoever's in... it wasn't us that made this decision... we'll take learnings from it....... we are where we are.. blah blah.

Just not good enough when there are clearly some fundamental fault lines. Whose 'constitution' is the most important, St.Vincent's (Church doctrine) or the States. And has been said already, there are many ways in which this new hospital can avoid certain procedures as in 'not part of our remit'... 'no staff properly trained for xyz'... 'no resources for xyz' and so on.

Yes though we've seen it all before in this country. Any citizen who has followed events in the last 30-40 years knows that 'Canon Law' supersedes State Law in the churches eyes. The church in Rome is still a powerful force with a view (as they are entitled to have) on all related matters.

As regards the responses of politicians in 30 years, how often do you want to hear the current hackneyed phrase "we'll take learnings from it"?? We've had other versions of it in the past but it all amounts to people washing their hands of responsibility for decisions taken.