Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 6 October 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

Health Services: Quarterly Update

4:30 pm

Ms Anne O'Connor:

There are very few institutions left that are functioning as described. As the Minister of State said, many of our campuses are now being used for many other services, such as services for older persons. The Central Mental Hospital is one of the real institutions we have left. There is also St. Vincent's Hospital, Fairview, which is still a stand-alone site. With regard to what A Vision for Change proposes in terms of acute units being on the site of acute general hospitals, we have very few of the aforementioned facilities left. They include St. Vincent's, Fairview, and St. Brigid's in Ardee, which will soon be moving its acute services to a new purpose-built unit. St. Loman's in Mullingar is a stand-alone unit. There has been much progress on scaling down and closing institutions but, importantly, mental health services have done very well out of capital investments. Although we have not had a very significant income from the sale of sites, we have had significant investment. In this regard, one should bear in mind all our relatively new child and adolescent units. We have a significant number of new purpose-built acute units. We have gained quite considerably through expenditure on and capital for mental health services despite the fact that we have not yet sold off many of the sites.