Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Committee on Disability Matters

Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Bernard Gloster:

No, that is fine. On the primary care centres, which is on the health side, we did hit a wall. We have developed many of them. There were three opportunities. This included public-private partnerships, which was a small number; the lease model, which was the preferred option and provided the biggest number; and a small number of direct builds. They proved to be successful where they have been built. We could use them better. The difficulty, quite frankly, is that we reached a point with construction inflation, the construction recruitment challenge and market saturation that developers who had been awarded the development opportunity for primary care centres no longer saw it is as financially viable to pursue it based on the original lease cost that we had agreed. We have gone back to the market to see if there is any movement in that. If we cannot yield quick enough, we are going to have to look at direct build if the market does not take.

On the matter of St. Joseph's, I do not know the answer but I will check that out. I do not know about the physiotherapy service but I will make sure that colleagues do. We will come back to the Deputy on it.