Three government TDs have joined a cross-party Oireachtas group set up to lobby the health minister Stephen Donnelly to secure total state control of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH).

Fianna Fáil’s John Lahart, Fine Gael’s Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and the Green Party’s Neasa Hourigan are signatories to a letter sent to Donnelly last Thursday requesting a meeting to discuss the ownership of the planned new hospital. The group wants the state to be the sole proprietor of the new buildings located on St Vincent’s hospital campus and of the ground on which they are built.

Other signatories include Roisín Shortall, the Social Democrats co-leader.

The group was established on Wednesday following a briefing about the hospital given to TDs and senators by guest speakers. They included Peter Boylan, a former NMH master who has campaigned against any religious input into the running of the maternity facility to ensure contraceptive interventions, donor IVF and abortion will be provided there.