James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I thank my colleague, Deputy Terence Flanagan, for sharing time. For inpatients with intellectual disabilities, St. Ita's is their home. Intellectual disability is disability for life. Yet these people are asked to live in surroundings that have been described by the Inspector for Mental Health Services in stark terms, with paint peeling off walls, dirt in corners and patients wandering aimlessly in the Victorian, Dickensian conditions. Every society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members.

There was cause for great hope - if not quite celebration - when Knockamann was built, a gleaming new unit on the grounds of St. Ita's Hospital, within view of the clients it is supposed to serve. They find it difficult to understand why it lies idle, guarded by a security man, instead of used for the purpose for which it was built. If the unit were functional, 60 patients could be moved from their current inadequate accommodations to modern facilities that would afford them much greater dignity. The additional staff would be able to provide a proper day service, more occupational therapy and so on, and a greater sense of normality. Instead these people have been left in the conditions I have described.

I understand it cost €14 million to build the facility that has been left idle. That is a penny wise and pound foolish approach. Even after the 60 patients are moved to Knockamann, some 100 others with intellectual disabilities will remain in the main block of St. Ita's Hospital. There must be an effort to alleviate the stifling conditions in which these people live. They are not there because they are ill; this is their home. I conclude by complimenting the staff who do such excellent work. Equally, however, I wish to refer to the stupidity of this public embargo, which has resulted in such a penny wise and pound foolish approach. Furthermore, it has resulted in the loss abroad of well-trained nurses, on whom much money has been spent for training. When this recruitment ban madness ends, we will find ourselves short of nurses.

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