Mr. Michael Fitzgerald:

Okay.

Moving on, the Deputy asked a few specific questions around a property in Midleton. Yes, we are in significant negotiation on a particular property. As I said in my opening statement, there is a process within the HSE around proposing that for purchase. The property is being considered through that process. Mr. O'Connell might fill in details around that process. We have not purchased a property but we have one in mind that is going through our approval process to purchase. We are very hopeful that it will emerge on the other side, which would be helpful in this regard. Part of the plan for the future is that it would be there as another stepping stone for people to live as independently as possible in Midleton and the general area.

The opening statement also outlined where we are on the ten-bed rehabilitation-style residential centre that we intend to build there. We have to do an options appraisal on that because we have to say what the best location is, whether it is possible and whether it is the appropriate place to build on the site. Is it appropriate to build on the site across the road, on the community hospital, as the Deputy said, or should it be on another site given the requirements for doing it? There is an approval process around how we go around that Mr. O'Connell might talk about too.

The other important thing I want to reiterate is that we completely understand that this is not easy. If we had the perfect accommodation somewhere else and quite close to it which would be more or fully compliant with the commission that would be helpful particularly for those people who require a level of specialist service around them to meet their particular needs. We do not have that. We are not suggesting that all of our residential services are all modern and appropriate in the context of fully complying with regulation. They are not. It is certainly our intention and our plan that a significant refurbishment and replacement programme will be required right across Cork for many of the centres in question. I do not think that we ever said that we were able to find places that were better but we do need to make sure that the people's needs are met. It might be an appropriate location to meet those particular clinical needs and that balance has to be there as well.

I hear the Deputy's concern, particularly that the service could be taken away and how you could have no service there. What we are striving to do, in accordance with Government policy and with what we know is the right thing to do, is to make it very much a community-based service for Midleton, east Cork and the greater area right across the CHO. In the development of a ten-bed unit or in the development of a house or a type of residence, and along with the other services such as our home-based treatment team, with a focus on rehabilitation, our view is that in accordance with policy, you maintain more people at home, well and independent for as long as possible. Unfortunately we still live with an institutional mindedness, perhaps, which surrounds us and we are only coming away from that with the closure of significant large centres that were not the appropriate place for people to live out their lives and where they did not have the opportunity of living their life as independently as possible. That is what I recognise as a rights-based service into the future.

The Deputy said it was into the future and I think that is the reasonable thing to say as you have not got it in your hand at the moment. But there are certainly aspects of that service in place already through the home-based treatment team and the supports that are there in the community. I think that we need to start talking in a positive way about the future service that can and will be achieved in Midleton and the area. We have to embrace that. It might be different. Like change, it might be different to what we felt before but it has the capacity to support people and to support people to support themselves to maintain wellness as long as possible. Mr. O'Connell might speak on the processes around the two developments that we talked about.