Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses very much for being here. I am sorry I missed the earlier part of the session but I had another engagement. We sometimes talk about the UNCRPD in this committee almost in the abstract, but I have a real-world example of a major service proposal in Cork that in my view and that of many of my colleagues represents a blatant breach of that convention. It will be a far-reaching permanent breach because the proposal is for a centralised residential mental health service that will detach people from their communities of origin and, in fact, from any setting that vaguely represents community living. I have raised this situation here repeatedly. I feel very strongly about it because I worked in the mental health services in Cork as a psychologist and I have seen the benefits of the same services in Cork adhering to our national mental health policies over the years by facilitating the reintegration of long-stay patients of institutional facilities back into their communities, including long-stay patients of Our Lady's Hospital in Cork and of St. Stephen's Hospital in Glanmire.

The proposal I will outline does exactly the reverse of that trend. I am not expecting the witnesses to take on faith what I am saying about this project here because it is not something they are likely to be aware of, but I ask if the commission can intervene in any way in a service development that is under way if it can be established that the service will represent a very serious breach of the UNCRPD. The service proposal in question is for a capital investment of €64 million in a 50-bed residential-----