Social Democrat TD Roisin Shorthall has said that the legal documents giving effect to the State's agreement with the Sisters of Charity over the ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital on the site of St Vincent's Hospital are still not available, despite assurances they would be available earlier this year.
Last December, the Minister for Health Simon Harris announced that agreement in principle had been reached with the St Vincent's Healthcare Group to provide the State with a 99-year lease of the land on which the new hospital will be built to allow the State retain ownership of the new facility.
Ms Shorthall said that Minister Harris had repeatedly said he is confident that the new hospital will be clinically and operationally independent.
"It is impossible at this point to see how that can be the case. We know that there are all kinds of approvals required from the Vatican for that to happen and we also know that none of those approaches have been made yet," she said.
She said she did not believe the issue could now proceed in a way that is publically acceptable and called on the Minister to "come clean on this".
She was speaking during a Dáil debate on a Fianna Fáil Private Member's Motion calling for safer maternity care.
The party's health spokesman, Stephen Donnelly said the Government has an opportunity, and should be striving to provide, a world-class maternity service to Irish women.
Mr Donnelly said that the 2016 Maternity Strategy was a good plan supported by stakeholders, but he said new hospitals were not progressing and there was divergence in the availability of scans across the country.
However, at the opening of the debate, Minister Simon Harris criticised Fianna Fáil's record in maternity services, saying he found it hard to trust the party on this issue.
"Fianna Fáil governments, with all the bounty of the booming economy at their disposal of the Celtic Tiger years, did not rebuild Holles Street, did not rebuild the Coombe, did not rebuild the Rotunda, nor did they set aside one year or one cent in any capital plan," he said.
Independent TD Mattie McGrath accused Mr Donnelly of being hypocrtical as there had been warnings before an Oireachtas Health committee that terminations could be carried out for conditions that were not fatal.
He said the availability of terminations had placed "additional and severe pressure" on maternity services.
