James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It has been interesting to listen to colleagues have an opportunity to question the representatives of the HSE. I am not at all satisfied by what I have heard at this meeting. Above all else, it comes down to the basic fact the HSE will strip my local area within my constituency of its existing residential mental health care services. For example, in Kanturk in north-west Cork, there are 13 single en suite rooms, while in Mallow there are 14 single en suite rooms. In Carrigabrick in Fermoy, there are 14 single en suite rooms. In terms of Midleton, Cobh and Youghal, the HSE is reducing the number to zero. It is just not acceptable for anyone to accept that, make sense of it or try to defend it, as has been so strenuously done by the HSE today. It shows an entire disregard for the needs of that area.

Deputy Stanton is right. The east Cork area is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan regions in Ireland. A new town is being built outside Midleton. The current size of Carrigtwohill is due to multiply. Youghal and Cobh are growing. The HSE wants to strip the service out of the area. What the HSE is doing is not about the physical standard of the building; it is about withdrawing a service from the community. It could rebuild the building. It could put a second floor on it if it needed the required usage of the full site. That could easily be done by putting another floor onto the building. The HSE representatives should not try to sell that one to me, the families or the people of east Cork. Simply on the basis of population growth alone, we need to retain a mental healthcare service in the east Cork area that is residential and staffed 24 hours a day.

As Deputy Buckley noted, if this is all taken away, it is very hard to see how it will come back. Given the historical issues in the Midleton area, of which all present are aware, what the HSE is trying to do is beyond comprehension. I have tried to engage with it constructively, as have all members, but there is no point asking a question because I will not get an answer. Those are my concluding remarks. It is just not good enough.