Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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Question 27: To ask the Minister for Health if he will direct the Health Service Executive to maintain adolescent and child psychiatric services in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, which is the youngest fastest-growing area of the country. [1050/12]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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It is planned to relocate the Warrenstown in-patient service from Blanchardstown to St. Loman's Hospital, Palmerstown on an interim basis, pending transfer to a new unit in Cherry Orchard. The facility at Warrenstown can only accommodate 6 in-patient beds and this results in an inefficient utilisation of the staff resource available. The recently vacated and redecorated in-patient facility at St. Loman's will provide accommodation of a higher standard than that available in Blanchardstown and will also facilitate the expansion of the service through the provision of additional in-patient beds.

The new purpose built 22 bed in-patient unit proposed for construction in the grounds of Cherry Orchard Hospital will in due course, accommodate the Warrenstown Service and a new Older Adolescent In-Patient Service. The design team has been appointed and it expected that construction will be completed by the end of 2013/ early 2014. There are no plans to reduce the level of service currently provided by the Castleknock and Blanchardstown Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Teams. The buildings where they are currently accommodated are no longer fit for purpose and it is planned to relocate them to the new Child and Adolescent Day Hospital facility recently completed in Cherry Orchard, while continuing to provide clinics in the catchment areas.