Sir, – Dr Peter Boylan (Letters, February 21st) has once again been given space in your letters page to voice his concerns about the ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital.
This is one of those issues where many traditional Catholics would also have concerns, but their voices are seldom heard. While Dr Boylan worries that abortions and other procedures will be under threat in the new NMH, some of us worry about precisely the opposite – that an institution that is nominally Catholic would permit medical procedures that are completely in violation of Catholic teaching.
I find it very hard to understand why the Sisters of Charity, in this instance, did not insist from the outset that the State acquire the site by compulsory purchase order, if so minded. The money obtained could then, for example, have been devoted by the Sisters (or their nominees) to provision of services for women in crisis pregnancies who opt to keep their babies, a service which the State itself seemingly has no intention of providing. – Yours, etc,
JIM STACK,
Lismore,
Co Waterford.