David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the moves towards an independent centre for day care. I always felt it was wrong that people were walking through the Owenacurra centre, which was the home of residents. Various people were walking into the centre on various days. Physically separating the two services is a good idea and I look forward to our guests letting us know where that day care centre will be located and whether planning will be needed for it. There will be a centre where people can go during the day and receive therapy and treatment and so on. I believe there were between 40 and 60 people per week availing of that. Is that correct?

What is coming from this meeting and the previous meeting on this issue is that the continuing care currently being provided in Owenacurra will be lost to east Cork. It will not be provided anywhere in east Cork. Mr. Fitzgerald has told us his plan is to build houses on the site, but he does not have a budget for that yet. If the plans to redevelop Midleton Community Hospital, which is next door to this site, are anything to go by, we could be waiting for quite a while before we see houses on the Owenacurra site.

Will Mr. Fitzgerald provide an indication of where we are with the building of the new hospital across the road? That 50-bed unit is badly needed and will free up all that complex. The HSE may have other plans for that. I suggest that rather than building houses on the site, the HSE should, as was stated earlier, build a ten-bed unit that could be used for continuing care. It could make it a two-storey building and the upstairs could be used as offices for staff and so on. That would alleviate many of the concerns that all colleagues present, and the community at large in east Cork, have mentioned. I ask Mr. Fitzgerald to consider that and revert to the committee on it. Alternatively, the HSE could consider the next step down, which is a high-support hostel, on the site. Like the Chairman, I do not like using the word "hostel" in this context. It jars with me too.

Even if the HSE were to apply today for planning permission to build on the site, it could take quite a while for that permission to come through and so on and there could be objections. In light of that fact, am I right in saying we can give comfort to the current residents that there will be no pressure whatsoever put on them to move out if they do not wish to do so? Getting back to the question asked by the Chairman, if a person states he or she does not wish to leave but rather wishes to stay in the centre, which, as was stated, has been the home of a particular person for 34 years, can that person be allowed to stay there until we have more clarity in respect of the centre? The centre is now physically safe from a fire point of view. Works have been carried out and the kitchen, which was a concern, is no longer operational. In addition, the number has reduced.