Meanwhile, At The Department of Health

at

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1665 National Maternity Hospital_90509317
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This lunchtime.

Hawkins House, Dublin 2.

A protest against the Sisters of Charity gaining ‘sole ownership’ of the new National Maternity Hospital.

It follows an online petition, against the Sisters of Charity getting sole ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital, gaining almost 60,000 signatures.

Earlier: 51,645 And Counting

Thanks Graeme Kelly

Rollingnews

Top pic via Nicola McCafferty,

Meanwhile…

Social Democrat co-leader Róisín Shortall  has called for an immediate halt to the hand-over of the new National Maternity Hospital to the Sisters of Charity

Deputy Shortall said:

“The decision about the ownership and governance of the new National Maternity Hospital was made in secrecy and lacks any transparency and public accountability.

There are too many unanswered questions from the Minister and we need to see an immediate halt to the current process so that these questions about the ownership and the issue of ethos can be addressed. The Five questions I have are:

What is the justification for gifting a €300 million hospital, paid for with public money, to a private interest?

Why not just lease the site from the Religious Sisters of Charity?

Will the Minister publish the details of the agreement that was reached over the governance and ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital?

What assurances will women have that a Catholic ethos will not determine the range of medical interests available to them in the new hospital?

What will the exact composition of the new corporate entity be and why does the St Vincent’s Healthcare group have any place in that structure?

Anyone?

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108 thoughts on “Meanwhile, At The Department of Health

  1. james oneill

    so glad the church still has some sway in this country, imagine these guys in charge
    yuck

    1. Grace

      Yes! So much better to have a bunch of cult pushing old wierdos telling people how to live based on some medieval fairy story – that worked out so well for Ireland in recent decades, hasn’t it?! Oh wait, no….

        1. mildred st. meadowlark

          Get away out of that you judgemental fool. Who are you to judge anyone, with your devotion to the hypocrisy of the Catholic church? Are they so perfect? Are you?

          Their days are numbered.

          Can’t say I’m terribly sad. I’d rather have the ineptitude of a hundred Simon Harris’ over the dirty interfering rosary-clutching bastards from the church.

          They’ve ruined countless lives, in the name of ‘God’, using it as an excuse to belittle and denigrate the people of Ireland. They stole our children and sold them for profit. They are a fucking cancer and a disgrace.

          Good riddance to the lot of them.

          1. james oneill

            wow, you are full of so much hate. How many people do you know whose lives were ruined by the church? you should also note that 83 % of the population are catholic.
            The church has done more good then bad over the years. I fear for where our country is going.

          2. mildred st. meadowlark

            I’ll be sure to mention that to the three people in my family who suffered abuse at the hands of the church. Or perhaps I’ll mention to my grandmother’s sister, who had her child taken from her and sold on. Or perhaps to their brother, who had to emigrate in order to marry his Protestant girlfriend.

            My bitterness is entirely justified. My family has been utterly destroyed thanks to the ‘good’ work done by the Church.

          3. Malta

            83% or even 78%, and yet the marriage equality referendum passed. They’re not very good Catholics now are they? Maybe some of them don’t have to courage to admit or the intelligence to realise that they’re not actually Catholic.

          4. ahjayzis

            83%? No wonder divorce is illegal, gays are banned, there’s not a drop fo drink consumed on Good Friday and no condom manufacturer has been able to establish a market!

          5. james oneill

            @Mildred
            this is not soley the responsibility of the church, there were no laws saying the church could take kids from anyone, all elements including family conspired in these evil acts.
            I know more people who have only ever had good experiences with the church than than bad.

            I have to laugh at “having to emigrate” such rubbish, nobody had to emigrate, it was there choice, if you had said deported I would have some sympathy.

          6. mildred st. meadowlark

            I see. So are you imply that it is the fault of my family members, that they asked to be raped, repeatedly, by the very people entrusted with their education? Oh yes, they received a fine education, so lets just ignore the fact that they buggered an 11 old boy, for example.

            Are you implying that because society turned a blind eye to the selling of children, that makes it less of crime? Less of a disgrace? That the church is not culpable for these things? Because it doesn’t. No one, NO ONE, asked the church to do that on our behalf.

            Do you have children? How could you, as a parent, find that acceptable? Because, speaking as a mother, I’d happily kill anyone who tried to hurt my child in any way or tried to take her from me.

          7. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            Yeah, shut up, Mildred. Your FAMILY was evil, not the church. It was all their own fault for allowing this evil to happen. You know, the evil that had nothing to do with the church which most people love.
            Mr O’Neill is just here pointing out facts and you’re just spouting NONSENSE.

          8. MoyestWithExcitement

            There’s the cruelty at the heart of the Catholic church right there. “I have to laugh at “having to emigrate” such rubbish, nobody had to emigrate, it was there choice,” His “choice” was between staying amd not *being allowed* to marry his partner. This guy’s response? ‘LOL, tough.’

          9. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            Christ, Mildred. Sorry for making light of it: I hadn’t seen your reply above.
            Horrendous. I too would happily gouge the eyes out of anyone who even looked at my child sideways, not to mind the abuse administered to your family.

          10. mildred st. meadowlark

            It’s a nasty history, some of which only came to light recently, and it makes a person slightly embittered, knowing the depths of the church’s many injustices.

            I hardly think my family is alone in what they suffered, and believe me when I say they suffer still, and that’s why I am so vocal about my disgust. It wasn’t just my family who suffered. I’d say we all know someone who was negatively affected.

          11. mildred st. meadowlark

            PS, I didn’t mind your heavy use of sarcasm. His comment was ridiculous, and deserved to be mocked.

        2. pedeyw

          Yep, why think for yourself when there’s a perfectly good church there to do it for you? How are thing’s going in Iona, by the way?

          1. james oneill

            The church/Christianity offers moral guidance. Otherwise everyone sets their own.
            I have nothing to do with Iona.

          2. Yeah, Ok

            To paraphrase Jimmy: “I’d be a murderer and a rapist if someone didn’t tell me not to be”

          3. Starina

            Moral guidance, James? So, like, the magdalene laundries and child molestation and covering up child molestation and collaborating with the Nazis and all that, yeah?

          4. MoyestWithExcitement

            “The church/Christianity offers moral guidance.”

            No, biology does that. The survival of a species relies on everyone being nice to each other. That’s why we have empathy. It existed long before anyone codified a belief in invisible superheroes.

          5. pedeyw

            That’s worrying. If you’re major reason for not commiting murder or rape is because the church tells you not to, you’re a bad person. I had a non religious upbringing and I have no urge to rape or murder.

          6. Starina

            to quote True Detective: “If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of s***. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.”

        3. scottser

          ‘cult of the self’
          literally lmao!
          what? like self-respect and notions of integrity? who on earth do i think i am, eh?

          1. james oneill

            If everyone sets their own morals and notion sof self respect there would be no society. The church offered a place for all to gather around.
            The message of CHristiainity is nothing but positive. The message of these people is me me me me

          2. pedeyw

            The message of Christianity is largely positive. It’s the occasionally terrible actions of the Catholic church, and more specifically an order within it, that is the problem here.

          3. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            Agreed. It’s a nice religion, really. Just totally and utterly ruined by the Church.

          4. realPolithicks

            “The message of CHristiainity is nothing but positive.”

            ABM where have you been man, I can’t say I’ve missed you because that would be a lie. As for your statement, thats complete and utter BS which even you don’t believe.

    2. MoyestWithExcitement

      Yes, praise Allah that a bunch of elderly virgins who systematically protected paedophiles and actually unleashed quite a lot of them on innocent children have sway with our morally bankrupt government. Huzzah!

      1. james oneill

        the usual rubbish from this sort. Totally brain washed by the media,
        the church has done far more good than bad. Its well known.

        1. MoyestWithExcitement

          Yeah? What have they done that cancels out protecting child rapists from the law and actually sending them to new communities where they raped more children?

        2. Daisy Chainsaw

          You could probably look at any evil person down through the years and find that they did “more good than bad”. Go through every inmate in prison here and you’d see the same, but coaching the U14s for the last 10 years doesn’t get you out of jail free because you were drunk and killed another motorist.

          Raping, buggering and blackmailing children isn’t balanced out by giving them an education while raping and buggering them.

          Enslaving women and selling their babies isn’t balanced out by giving them a roof over their heads while enslaving them!

          1. james oneill

            Your logic is flawed here, the institution of the church has done more good than bad, individuals did the most horrible things but it was not the churchs policy

          2. LiamZero

            You keep saying “more good than bad”, which would be fair enough if the bad wasn’t among the most evil actions human beings commit.
            More good than bad would be, say, a person running a homeless shelter who occasionally steals milk out of the fridge to use at home. Tolerating and facilitating and actively being involved in child rape, destruction of families, ruination of lives and, apparently, even murder, doesn’t fall under the category of merely “bad”.

          3. pedeyw

            But they did those things under the watch and while representing the Catholic Church. Doing good things doesn’t mean your organisation is off the hook for what it’s members did under your watch.

          4. MoyestWithExcitement

            “Your logic is flawed here, the institution of the church has done more good than bad, individuals did the most horrible things but it was not the churchs policy”

            Enslaving women, persecuting gay people, protecting child rapists from prosecution and stopping the spread of contraception in Africa, which directly led to the spread of AIDS in Africa, were all church policy.

    1. Rugbyfan

      Need a serious push on this issue. Giving assets to an order that is still in arrears to the state! Madness. Still politicians have to keep the gombeens that put them in happy!

    2. Daisy Chainsaw

      For a Thursday lunchtime at short notice, it’s not half bad.

      Go and organise a lunchtime demo in support of the nuns for tomorrow. See how many you muster.

      1. newsjustin

        Well over a million Irish people – in the Republic alone – attend mass every week. You should check if out some time.

        1. MoyestWithExcitement

          Similarly, you should consider attending an atheist conference (no idea what they’re actually called) sometime. There IS a better way for you.

        2. ReproBertie

          Do you have a source for that figure? I find it hard to believe that 2 out of 9 of us regularly attends mass.

          1. MoyestWithExcitement

            The census. I looked it up. Although the census does also say everyone’s bilingual so….

          2. newsjustin

            If you don’t do something yourself, it can be harder to imagine other people doing it.

            Less than 30% of the 3.7 million catholics identified in the census. Mass attendance figures can be hard to agree on, but 27% (.27 x 3.7m = 1million) would be conservative.

            And that’s just the Republic of Ireland obviously.

          3. MoyestWithExcitement

            I *still* feel surprised when I see anyone under the age of 65 walk out of my local church.

  2. Anomanomanom

    Do people not actually realise the sisters of charity own loads of “medical facilities” we’ll call them. And most are well known places. So why not protest all those places since the HSE actually pays the wages in them but don’t own them.

    1. delacaravanio

      Because this is (or was supposed to be) a new, non denominational, national facility.

    2. Yeah, Ok

      Yes, and the government should be focusing their efforts on wresting control of these facilities and our schools from all religious interference. Instead they’re doing the exact opposite.

      Wait until the 8th amendment is repealed (and it will be) and see how much influence these creeps have on our health service.

    3. mildred st. meadowlark

      And I imagine people don’t want to trust the lives of their children to the same bunch of people who committed a lifetimes worth of atrocities towards women and children, because ‘God’.

      It’s insulting, given the context.

  3. Kevin

    Is this the contingency plan in case the Repeal the 8th movement succeeds? So the government can let the Catholic medical facilities block abortion access and claim their hands are tied because they don’t own them?

    1. jusayinlike

      No your giving them too much credit there now.. they do what they’re told by they’re told by they’re Jesuit masters without question, just look at Noonan earlier this year opening the hospital in limerick for the bon secors..

      treacherous cult and it’s “Christian democratic” proxy fine gael..

    2. Yeah, Ok

      Yes. SOC and the government think they’re being very clever here. That untouchable “ethos” will be trotted out in due course.

    3. MoyestWithExcitement

      That’s what I reckon. Harris said they won’t have influence but the nun who’d be sitting on the board has very different opinions about that.

      1. jusayinlike

        The nuns want their eugenics vaccine jabs agenda to continue abound as pronounced by the Club of Rome, and Christian Democratic cult proxy fine gael will facilitate it..

        Hideous

          1. jusayinlike

            I’m completely anti-vaccine, sure the nuns want to be in charge of the hospital so they can continue with their evil eugenics mandate, anything goes wrong the state will have to cough up not the nuns, how can you be anti nun-ownership of the hospital and pro-vaccine, the vaccines are why they’re looking for ownership..

          1. Kieran Nice Young Chap

            *Anti-8th amendment

            Good man! Thanks for catching my good there!

            I’m pro-vaccine though

  4. ollie

    The owners are irrelevant, just an excuse for some church bashing by the usual subjects.
    The important point is that state assets shouldn’t be given gratis to anyone

    This is the apology they gave for their role in child abuse and slavery:

    it was “with deep regret that we acknowledge that there are women who did not experience our refuge as a place of protection and care”. “Further, it is with sorrow and sadness that we recognise that for many of those ….. their time in a refuge is associated with anxiety, distress, loneliness, isolation, pain and confusion and much more,”

    1. Yeah, Ok

      “The owners are irrelevant”
      Wrong.

      The owners are entirely relevant when they have the power to refuse urgent medical care to citizens of this country who have paid for this facility with their taxes, only for it to be handed over to a shady cult with questionable ‘morals’ that they like to use against innocent people.

      The Mater is similarly run and has previously refused lifesaving cancer medication as it requires the patient to go on the contraceptive pill during treatment. Members of its governing board have said that they would refuse to comply with the provisions of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act. The Sisters of Charity are just the same. Ownership is utterly, unequivocally, wholly relevant in this case.

      1. ollie

        yeak, ok, wrong.
        Would it be ok if I got a 500 million euro development for free?
        What if Harris decided tomorrow to give the hospital to Johnny Ronan, would you be happy then?

        1. Yeah, Ok

          I wasn’t disagreeing with the rest of your post. It is very, very relevant that the group that HAS been given the hospital is one that is so atrociously repugnant to the facility they’ve been granted that it’s almost comical.

    2. ahjayzis

      So why don’t you give me your house and car. It’s cool, I’ll give you a golden share and a lien. Since it doesn’t matter, like.

  5. MoyestWithExcitement

    A party who tried to abolish the upper house of parliament, a party whose potential next leader said referendums are undemocratic, a party who thought ot fit and proper to create a “citizens assembly” to represent the people’s voice in government because they don’t think that’s their job, a party who’ve been complicit in the persecution of those who want to hold the powerful to account think they can give away OUR assets built with OUR money to a debtor who’ve owed US money for years and were responsible for the misery and death of thousands of US. FG are every bit as bad as the hard right in the tories and GOP.

      1. Yeah, Ok

        FF gave the religious orders the sweet deal on the redress scheme in 2002, don’t forget.

    1. ahjayzis

      The way I understand it, the FF government deal with the orders was about indemnity.

      If they didn’t pay up on their side, how are they still indemnified? They should be taken for everything they have.

    1. realPolithicks

      He was number two on the list, but apparently he was also demanding a finders fee.

    2. ahjayzis

      I’m sure Siteserv, that company we gave him, will have a contract or two thrown at them during it’s construction.

  6. Sheik Yahbouti

    People, people don’t be getting excited. This is just business as usual in our good old Faux Republic. By sleight of hand and a fait accompli (so they hoped) yet another supine Government hands over public assets to private interests. Ours not to reason why, ours just to pay – then eff off and die. ‘Same is it ever was, same as it ever……….

  7. dav

    I heard the former Master of the Rotunda on Morning Ireland making a very clear argument as to how the nuns should not have ownership and running of the national Maternity Hospital and pocketing Millions in the process

  8. ollie

    In this Country the Catholic church consists of more than priests and nuns. It also includes most of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and RTE.

  9. Andy

    meh, seems to be the usual crowd.

    Based on water protests, there must be 65,000 people there.

    swing for it.

  10. Junkface

    This really is a disgusting development. People should march more about this than anything else in Irelands long list of cock-ups.
    Destroy the Catholic church, it is a sick Cult that preyed on the poor and innocent for over 100 years while it collected money for their palace in the Vatican and played pass the parcel with Paedophile priests in communities nationwide.

  11. Andrew

    If you consider anything that can be defined as truly evil in this Country, as apposed to corrupt or incompetent, it has been perpetrated by the Catholic Church. Triples locks, golden shares etc are not the point. It is an insult to all survivors of the evil brought into society by the Catholic Church to even consider any involvement , what so ever, from them in any capacity in provision of maternity care.

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