Mr. Michael Fitzgerald:

I am indeed. Garnish House is former bed and breakfast accommodation on Western Road in Cork. At the beginning of the pandemic, we did an assessment of the requirements and needs of all our service users, particularly people in residential settings who might be vulnerable to Covid-19. We were not quite sure what that would mean, like everything else at that particular point in time back then in March and April. The opportunity came up for Garnish House to be used as an alternative to Millfield House. Millfield House had particular constraints for the residents of that particular centre because of the level of multi-occupancy of bedrooms and a lack of environmental circulatory space. The view was taken that the risk was sufficient that we would move out of Millfield House on a temporary basis until we saw what happened with regard to Covid-19. That was the initial reasoning for moving into Garnish House.

As bed and breakfast accommodation of its day, Garnish House is a large building. The reason we did not go about purchasing it, even though that was considered, was that there were a number of issues. First, the number of floors means there is a lot of access issues within the building. It is on a flood plain and Western Road experienced quite significant flooding back in 2009. It was felt that due to the cost of refurbishments and for all of those particular reasons, we would not proceed towards the purchasing of the centre.

The cost is high in the context of the ongoing costs associated with Millfield House but we intend to be gone from the facility early next year, certainly no later than the end of quarter 1. We are considering at the moment what we will do with regards to Millfield House and other facilities in the area so that we can find alternative accommodation. We will not be going back to Millfield with the same numbers of people but we will certainly go back there in the short term.