Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)

I thank the Office of the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this extremely important issue on behalf of the residents of the St. Joseph's Association intellectual disability service at St. Ita's Hospital in Portrane, County Dublin, and their families. It is a scandalous situation that Knockamann, the new residential development at the hospital comprising ten residential bungalows and a day centre, is still not open even though it was completed 14 months ago and handed over to the HSE eight months ago. It is very disappointing and demoralising that the 60 patients due to move there must instead remain in St. Ita's, a Victorian hospital in a poor state of disrepair which the Inspector of Mental Health Services has indicated repeatedly is in urgent need of refurbishment.

The transfer of 60 residents to Knockamann was to allow for the refurbishment of the existing service for the remaining patients and to close unsuitable areas of the hospital. That is on hold because of the farcical situation in which we now find ourselves. The Government's public service embargo is having a tangible effect on the service. Of the 40 new staff who were to be recruited, only 27 have thus far been appointed. St. Joseph's Association was never informed that this would be an obstacle to progress but instead was consistently reassured that the move would take place on schedule.

This delay is an injustice to the inpatients in St. Ita's Hospital who can only look at the new facility while they remain trapped in the same situation in which they have been for 11 years, waiting to be moved. It would take a relatively small sum of money, less than €1 million, to resolve the situation. The overall budget for the health service is €11 billion, while €4 billion has been put into the zombie Anglo Irish Bank and with another €4 billion to €6 billion of taxpayers' money to follow. I ask the Minister of State to give the matter careful consideration. People's lives are at stake and they and their families have been waiting long enough for what they were promised. The Minister of State must take action to correct this difficult situation.

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