Mr. Michael Fitzgerald:

The building is not fit for purpose in respect of the current services. The Deputy is aware of that point and I think he is agreeing with it. Regarding the future needs of the service, we are certainly going to look at this as a site and a location. As the Deputy said, it is a central location in Midleton and near the community hospital complex. We will certainly look at the site to evaluate if there are other needs or requirements that could be fulfilled by a development on that site. It would not, obviously, be in the same building but on the same site. We intend in that regard to have a widespread discussion with the community, the local authorities etc. to assess the feasibility of doing that. We are giving that commitment here. I cannot give the Deputy a commitment that we are going to rebuild the same service on the same site. Even if we were doing that, the site itself would have to be considered.

The modern build that one would be constructing for residential care would have a different footprint requirement and standards than what exists at the moment. That is an important fact to point out.