Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, for coming in this evening. It is appropriate that the Minister of State is here to answer this question as it was she and I who started on this saga nearly three years ago. It has been a long arduous three years, as I have said.

The Minister of State will be aware of the property I am referring to here. The Minister of State visited it on site. She saw the potential of the site. The Minister of State saw how whatever organisation will inherit or lease it in time from Cork City Council can expand into the future. It is right beside a public park. It will be put to good use in time by whoever benefits from it.

As I have said, we met the HSE estates engineers on-site nearly three years ago. At that point, we were hopeful that the building, albeit occupied by the National Ambulance Service at the time, could be acquired by Cork City Council or some other stakeholder such as the Rainbow Club, which we were with when visiting that day and which is run by Karen and Jon O'Mahony.

We met that day with the HSE estates engineers to discuss the possibility of that building becoming a base for the expansion of the Rainbow Club and the more than 1,200 children for whom they provide a weekly service in Mahon. We left that site that day confident that things would progress but as we have learned up to now, things have moved very slowly.

The exchange of sites and buildings is a slow process. I genuinely understand that due diligence has to be done, engineers' reports have to be done, solicitors need to be involved in the exchange of deeds or whatever may be the case and while I am aware that the HSE has a statutory obligation in respect of how it disposes of property, three years seems excessive. That is what has driven me to lodge this question this evening. I lodged various parliamentary questions in the past few weeks as well.

As I said, this transfer of property will happen at some stage. It has already been ratified by Cork city councillors and it is imminent. Cork City Council will have to conduct some type of public consultation and put the property out for various stakeholders to express their interest in it but what I am asking here is whether we are any closer to the successful resolution of the transfer of that property from HSE estates to Cork City Council.

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