Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has insisted there was "never an issue in terms of governance or control" over the establishment of the new National Maternity Hospital amid disputed claims of religious involvement at the facility.
Cabinet today approved the plan for the construction of the new hospital on the grounds of St Vincent's Hospital in Elm Park, south Dublin to proceed to tender.
The new hospital is expected to provide a range of new facilities for new and expanded maternity and gynaecology services.
It is scheduled to have 80 beds more than the current capacity at Holles Street - all of which will be individual rooms.
The new hospital will also have more theatres.
However, the planned move to the Elm Park has been dogged by political controversy, with opposition parties demanding the hospital be State-owned and built on State land.
The plan has previously been the subject of concerns the ethos of the religious order that owned St Vincent's - the Sisters of Charity - would have some influence on the facility.
However, speaking to RTÉ News as he arrived at Government Buildings for this morning's weekly Cabinet meeting, Mr Donnelly stressed that the majority of clinicians working at the facility have strongly rejected the claim.
Asked if the religious influence argument has been resolved to his satisfaction, Mr Donnelly said: "There never was an issue in terms of governance or control, there was a lot of misinformation."
Mr Donnelly said "a lot of things were said at the time from some quarters that were verifiably untrue" and that, in his view, "unfortunately a lot of good people were misled".
The new National Maternity Hospital location was approved in principle by Cabinet in May 2022, after months of debate over the religious ethos issue.
In April 2022, the religious Sisters of Charity group transferred its shareholding in St Vincent's Healthcare Group to another entity, St Vincent's Holdings, which will lease the land the new hospital will be based on for 299 years.
At the time, opposition parties accused Government of agreeing a scheme that did not guarantee a publicly owned hospital or publicly owned land.
Governor and former Master of The National Maternity Hospital Peter Boylan has said the concerns that he has raised and continues to hold about going ahead at the new site are "backed up by fact and documentation".
"I haven't misled anybody," Mr Boylan said, though he believes "people have been misled" by being given "the impression that there is no possibility of any religious influence" in the planned new maternity hospital.
"We are being asked to believe that the Vatican has approved the formation of a new company (St Vincent's Holdings) that will own a maternity hospital in which termination of pregnancy, steralisation and IVF will take place," Mr Boylan said.
Mr Boylan said that "no one has seen" the documents sent between the Religious Sisters of Charity in Ireland and the Vatican that sanctioned the establishment of St Vincent's Holdings.
"The Government needs to get its act together and view that correspondence and refuse to proceed unless they see it and assure everybody that there is no hidden agenda. There are all sorts of things in the lease and in the licence and in the terms of agreement and so on that raise suspicions, so I take no comfort at all from the current situation," Mr Boylan said.
The current Master of the National Maternity Hospital Shane Higgins welcomed the news that construction of the new hospital is now going out to tender.
"We're delighted here at the National Maternity Hospital. This is the single biggest investment in women's health in the history of the State and we're proud to be a part of it," Mr Higgins said.
Mr Higgins said that he was assured that the Government approved legal framework for the new National Maternity Hospital appropriately and adequately addresses concerns that have been raised about its future ethos and independence.
"And not only am I (assured), but all the clinicians in the National Maternity Hospital signed letters last year in support of the move," Mr Higgins said.
He said that it was "right and proper" that the concerns were debated and said that "everyone was assured at the end of that debate that the ethos was not going to have an impact on the service that we provide."
Additional reporting Paul Cunningham, Laura Fletcher
