Campaigners say Catholic involvement in new National Maternity Hospital must be avoided
Claims that services at the new National Maternity Hospital will be free from religious influence cannot truthfully be made, according to the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women's Health.
The group are demanding an end to Catholic control over the future hospital.
They're outraged that the publicly funded hospital is being "gifted" to a religious organisation.
The campaign's Maria O'Connor says the Sisters of Charity also own three other Dublin hospitals. St Vincent's University Hospital, St Vincent's Private Hospital and St Michael's Hospital Dun Laoghaire.
Procedures which are forbidden by the Catholic Church such as sterilisation on demand have never been carried out in these hospitals. The evidence shows that the new maternity hospital is going to be more Catholic, not less," she said.
"This is the hospital that is to cost €350 million, taken from the public purse."
