Proposals aimed at ensuring the independence of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH), so it can provide abortions when it moves to the St Vincent’s Hospital campus, will go to the HSE board “very shortly”, the Minister for Health has said. It has been claimed, without concrete evidence, that the Religious Sisters of Charity will somehow stop abortions taking place at the hospital because it will be built on land they have offered at no cost to the State.

Stephen Donnelly said a memo to Government setting out the terms of the legal licence for the proposed hospital would follow “very shortly after that”.

A lot of work had been done in the background over the last six months, the Minister told reporters, with Department of Health officials and other stakeholders poring over legal contracts defining the operational model that will apply at the proposed facility.

These, he added, would “provide Government with absolute assurance that everything there will be just like it is here [in Holles Street], that the only influence will be medical influence, that every service that is provided under law will be provided and that it will be independent”.