asked the Minister for Health the total contribution by the State, to the new Saint Vincent's Hospital, Dublin; and what refund, if any, will be made from the disposal of the old premises.
Ceisteanna-Questions. Oral Answers. - New Dublin Hospital.
10.
The all-in cost of building and furnishing the new Saint Vincent's Hospital is estimated at about £4.3 million, of which approximately £3.7 million has been met to date by capital grants from the Hospitals Trust Fund. The site for the new hospital was provided free of charge by the Irish Sisters of Charity. The old Saint Vincent's Hospital premises fronting on Saint Stephen's Green remains the property of the order, but other properties which formed part of the old hospital complex are to be transferred to the State as a further contribution towards the cost of the new hospital.
Would the Minister not agree, in regard to a hospital to which the State has contributed so much, that it would be very wrong that it should be run on sectarian lines?
Would the Minister indicate what has been the added cost arising from the decision made by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1957 to postpone the building of a new Saint Vincent's Hospital, which was then scheduled to take place in 1958? Can the Minister indicate the extra cost involved in the ten years postponement before building, in fact, commenced?
I could not possibly answer that question. I doubt if the figures could be procured.
About £3 million extra.
Would the Minister, in view of the fact that public money was spent on the building of this institution, care to comment, and to condemn or to criticise, the very bigoted and sectarian speech made by the chairman of the board, Dr. John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin, at the opening of the institution in which, by implication, he excluded members of the religious minority of the nursing and medical profession from employment and also those of the minority who fall sick in this State and who have as much right to access to this hospital as anybody else and to treatment in accordance with their religious beliefs?
It does not arise. Will the Deputy please resume his seat?
We talk about a united Ireland and we have this kind of sectarianism going on. Why does the Minister for Health, Deputy Childers, not condemn it, as a member of the minority? Has the Minister not the grace to condemn it? Why does he not defend the rights of the minority?
This is disorderly.
Will the Minister for Health, Deputy Childers, not defend the rights of the minority-as a member of the minority?
Would Deputy Browne please desist? Would he please pay some attention to Standing Orders?
It is typical of the career of Deputy Childers.