Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is where it breaks down. I am in favour of Senator Buttimer's suggestion. In our game, we listen to both sides of the story and somewhere in the middle is the truth. My bugbear is someone else being blamed for a body's failings over the years. My strong opinion is based on evidence that we have dating back to 2016, as well as the mix and match of reports. When we request fire safety reports, what we get compacted into a single document is something from 2016, the next page or two will relate to 2018 and then there will be half of a fire safety report from 2019. There is a great deal of misinformation and distortion, but the main issue is that we will lose all services for more than 94,000 people in east Cork, devastate the centre's residents and destroy their families. There is mention of three-bed units here and three-bed units there but, as Dr. Kelleher mentioned, there is nothing concrete. It is all just suggestion.

We have an ageing population, so I cannot understand why the HSE does not believe that we will not need these services in east Cork any more. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to know we will. There will be instances of people needing respite, be it short term or long term, but the HSE seems to be dismissing the need over a single point, namely, that the building is not fit for purpose. If it is not fit for purpose, then knock it and replace it with a state-of-the-art one, keep the 22 beds, keep all of its services, including the mental health day care and short-term respite, and improve it. When we lose those staff and services, they will be gone and we will be back here on some other committee - if we are lucky enough - being reactive instead of proactive and asking how we did not see it coming. It will be on our shoulders because we did not stand up for the people whom we are supposed to represent. Sometimes, we have to call people out and challenge them. If the centre is not fit for purpose, the HSE has a duty of care to the people in that area to replace it with something that does work and is fit for purpose and, instead of reducing services, to improve them and move forward.

I will leave it at that. I could get angry about this matter, and I am doing my best to hold my patience.