R\u00f3is\u00edn Shortall TD, co-leader of the Social Democrats, has referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) the continued spending of public funds by the Government on works for the proposed new National Maternity Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is just reckless to continue to spend public money – \u20ac43m to date \u2013 on the new National Maternity Hospital, when there is no clarity or certainty on when or if the State will own the site on which the hospital is to be built.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cI am referring the Governments\u2019 reckless spending to the Comptroller and Auditor General. Why is the State spending huge amounts of money with zero guarantee that there will ever be a public benefit? This is not the way to run good government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe State is now in the ridiculous position of needing Vatican approval in order to build the hospital. This precise issue has been raised from the very beginning and, despite my calls over the last two years to the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach to come clean on what\u2019s going on, the Government still don\u2019t know whether or when the State will have control of the site for the badly-needed maternity hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would be the first time that the Vatican would give permission for a religiously-owned site to be handed over to the State for a maternity hospital that would provide all services, including terminations. There is no certainty that permission will be forthcoming, and it is unacceptable for the Government to continue to spend public funds on the project until there is legal clarity and certainty that the project will go ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet again we have delay after delay in a major infrastructure project by this Government while those who urgently need the service are left waiting. From Housing, to the National Children\u2019s Hospital to Broadband, this government are incompetent in delivering on the large-scale projects that is one of their core responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
24th<\/sup> Nov 2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
R\u00f3is\u00edn Shortall TD, co-leader of the Social Democrats, has referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) the continued spending of public funds by the Government on works for the proposed new National Maternity Hospital. \u201cIt is just reckless to continue to spend public money – \u20ac43m to date \u2013 on the new National Maternity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,264],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","category-roisin-shortall"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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