Nuns to be given new hospital

The article says the interests of the state will be preserved by putting a lein on it. Why not just keep it under the ownership of the HSE? What are the possible advantages of essentially donating the property to a religious order?

Well, it's being built on land that the Order owns. That probably brings a reasonably substantial value to the table. And the nuns won't really own the hospital as such; they are the shareholders of the SVHG, a not for profit charitable institution which currently owns St Vincent's Hospital and University, St Michaels Hospital, and a few other bits, and the SVHG will own the company (The National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park DAC) that owns the hospital. With the HSEs interest in the hospital protected, as mentioned of course.

I'm pretty sure the ethos of the hospital won't be up to the nuns either; that will be up to the Board of the Company which owns it. That Board has nine directors; 4 nominated by SVHG, 4 by NMH, including the Master, and 1 international expert in obstetrics and gynaecology, which means the nuns in question doesn't even have majority control of hospital governance; they themselves only have 2 seats on the Board of SVHG.

No religious order should have anything to do with maternity care.
I am furious the state would do this. How could anyone think this is okay.
Feels like we are going backwards.

This was reported months ago, there was a public row between the two sets of nuns over it...

Nuns are great for running orphanages and hospitals as long as the tax assessments are fair

magicbastarder wrote: »

It's a pity the state don't have the power to seize land in the interests of a public good. Let's call this hypothetical action a CPO, which would also handily allow the government to deduct monies owed to them from the abuse agreement.
I've seen it mentioned elsewhere that the value of the land in question is less than the outstanding money owed by the order. Citation required for that though.

I imagine most of us are pretty happy that public servants can't relieve us of our land in the name of the public good; the States track record with regard to land deals isn't exactly confidence inspiring. Allowing them to simply dudect monies they claim to be owed from such deals without due process would certainly ice the cake. No, I think if the State has a case to pursue debts, it already has a full legal system at its disposal. If it's not using it, then there may well be a reason why.

magicbastarder wrote: »

Absolam wrote: »

I've no idea how much it's worth, but I suspect the principle behind conferring ownership is based on the fact that if it's on their land the HSE would be obliged to demolish it on termination of their lease anyway? Something on the lines of you can't keep something on land you don't own. And moving a building is tricky.

It's a pity the state don't have the power to seize land in the interests of a public good. Let's call this hypothetical action a CPO, which would also handily allow the government to deduct monies owed to them from the abuse agreement.
I've seen it mentioned elsewhere that the value of the land in question is less than the outstanding money owed by the order. Citation required for that though.

More than a CPO is required as they would needco operation from the hospital.

magicbastarder wrote: »

but they can.
actually, the RTE site would have been an interesting choice for siting the new hospital, since the land was already state owned. dunno if there's enough land at play for it though.

Well, no they can't. CPOs are quite a restricted way of obtaining land; they can only be used by particular bodies in particular circumstances, are subject to oversight, negotiation, appeals and compensation processes. At the end of it all the public servants don't get to relieve anyone of their land; the State ends up paying ( by and large through the nose) for it.

Much as I suspect the HSE would have had to pay RTÉ if they decided to bid on their land; I doubt the fact that they're both State bodies would have meant one would simply give it to the other.

I'm not convinced State bodies work that way, and I've no doubt that a heck of a lot of money would go to solicitors, assessors, and consultants in the process, but yes it's one way of looking at it I suppose.

I’m coming late to this, and I’m not sure that I’m on top of all the facts, but it seems to me you could spin this one of (at least) two ways:

- “Nuns to be given new hospital”

- “Nuns provide new hospital site, for free”

The context here is that, in Irish law, there’s no distinction between (a) land, and (b) trees or crops planted in, or buildings or structures erected on, the land. The house at no. 1 Main Street is not a distinct asset, owned or capable of being owned separately from the site at no. 1 Main Street. When you build a house at no. 1 Main Street, you’re not creating a new item of property; you’re just improving or enhancing the value of an existing item of property.

Right. The opening position here is that the Elm Park site belongs to the Sisters of Charity. They bought it decades ago - at some time prior to the 1930s, I think - and from memory it served as their novitiate until they decided to relocate St. Vincent’s Hospital (which they established and ran) from its Stephen’s Green site (which they owned) to Elm Park in 1970.

As regards the new hospital, there’s a few options open to the State:

- Build it somewhere other than Elm Park. Obviously, this would require the State either to buy a suitable site, or allocate a suitable site from its existing estate, which in turn might involve rehousing/relocating any activity currently being operated on that site. So, not a cost-free alternative.

- Buy a site at Elm Park from the Sister of Charity. It has been suggested that they could CPO the site. Possibly, but that wouldn’t necessarily be cheaper than buying it by negotiation in the usual way. Either would cost a large amount of money, given the size and location of the site.

- Take a long lease of a site at Elm Park from the Sisters of Charity. At the end of the lease, if not renewed, the site with the hospital buildings on it would revert to the landlord, but a fifty-year old hospital building (or whatever) wouldn’t necessarily be a substantial enhancement to the value of the site - it would be obsolete, aged and in need of renovation or (more probably) demolition and replacement. So that wouldn’t represent a huge gift to the landlord, really. What would be a benefit to the landlord (and therefore a cost to the State) would be the rent paid on the site during the term of the lease, more than the value of the hospital buildings on the expiry of the lease.

- What seems to be actually happening: build a hospital on the site in return for the owner’s commitment to allow the site to be used to operate a hospital. As far as site cost goes, this is the cheapest arrangement for the State, since you don’t pay anything at all up front to acquire the site and you don’t pay any rent to occupy it; you get the use of it for free, and the site owner forgoes the sale or rental proceeds they could get from selling the site or letting it to another tenant. Instead the site owner gets any enhancement to the value of the site which comes from having a hospital building on it, but it only gets that value when the state vacates the site and ceases to operate a hospital there. As already noted, depending on how far off that day is, that’s not a terribly valuable right, and and its present value is certainly very small.

We can see this by imagining whether any commercial property developer would enter into a similar deal - provide a large site in Dublin 4 at no upfront cost and for no rent, and allow a hospital to be built on it, in return for the enhancement to the site value which would come from having a vacant hospital on it when the arrangement comes to an end. We can’t imagine a commercial developer entering into any such deal, can we? Which strongly suggests that, from the State’s point of view, this is a pretty good deal. They’re not doing this to confer some enormous advantage on the nuns, but to secure a considerable advantage for the taxpayers. It’s likely the cheapest way for the State to build the hospital.

Of course, much depends on the particular terms of the agreement under which the Sisters of Charity will allow the hospital to be conducted on the site. How long does it run for? Under what circumstances, and on what terms, can it be terminated? As we don’t know the answer to questions like these, we can’t say for sure how good or bad a deal this is from either party’s point of view. But it’s not obviously a bad deal from the State’s point of view, financially speaking.

The point has been made that the Sisters of Charity have an outstanding liability to the redress scheme. It’s a fair point, but it cuts both ways. The nuns could easily have approached this on the basis that they would provide the site rent-free, in return for their liability under the redress agreement being reduced each year by the market rental value of the site, or some such deal. As it is, it seems (from what has been reported) that they provide the site for free, and still retain their full liability under the redress agreement. So, again, this is not an obviously bad deal from the State’s point of view.

Haven't seen what either of them said, but I suspect the distinction that is being made is between the provision of healthcare, which can only be done by doctors, nurses and similar licensed practitioners (and it's not proposed that any of these will be nuns) and the operation of a hospital, which is what the board will do.