{"id":486715,"date":"2026-06-06T21:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/486715\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T21:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:53:08","slug":"taoiseach-ireland-is-not-going-backwards-to-private-model-of-maternity-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/486715\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach: Ireland is ‘not going backwards’ to private model of maternity care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland is \u201cnot going backwards\u201d to a private model of maternity care, the Taoiseach said.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the escalating controversy at the Rotunda over the provision of private maternity care, Miche\u00e1l Martin said contracts signed by consultants and maternity hospitals to provide public-only care \u201chave to be honoured\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe private model is essentially not sustainable in the modern era,\u201d he said, speaking to media at a commemoration of the centenary of the founding of Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> in Cork<\/a> City Hall on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Building the maternity hospital in Cork proved this incompatibility of private maternity care with contemporary best-practice, he said.<\/p>\n

The concentration of expertise and modern neonatal facilities in Cork University Maternity Hospital proved to be something that the private maternity hospital in Cork could not sustain, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re not going to go backwards in respect of this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A number of consultants chose to sign well-paid contracts with the State, committing to only providing public care.<\/p>\n

But Ireland\u2019s largest maternity hospital, the Rotunda in Dublin, has permitted consultants on public-only contracts to also provide some private maternity care on site.<\/p>\n

And the Rotunda has refused to back down from this position, requesting a meeting with the Government<\/a> to explain why it was choosing to allow consultants being paid by the State to provide public-only care, to also care separately for private patients at the hospital.<\/p>\n

But the Government is refusing to acquiesce to the Rotunda\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government is very clear there can’t be any deviation from what has been agreed,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n

The board of the Rotunda “will have to reflect\u201d on its position, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re surprised with what is happening within the Rotunda because consultants signed up to a public-only consultant contract and a lot of work went into that and a lot of investment has gone in behind that,\u201d the Taoiseach said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there can’t be any deviation from that because this was a new departure. The Government negotiated with the representatives of doctors. Doctors voluntarily signed up to it. The hospital itself signed up to a service level agreement with the Health Service Executive (HSE), which also has to be honoured.”<\/p>\n

The public-only consultant contract was central to Sl\u00e1intecare, the national strategy to create a universal, single-tier health and social care system. This is to replace Ireland\u2019s current two-tier system so that services would be provided to all patients based on need rather than ability to pay.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said the plan cannot now be derailed by consultants and hospitals refusing to honour contracts they willingly signed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can’t be any going back. We’re not going to have a collapse of what we’ve just in the last number of years negotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland is \u201cnot going backwards\u201d to a private model of maternity care, the Taoiseach said. Speaking about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[895,4892,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-486715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fianna-fail","tag-health-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}