Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

I am not in any way questioning the Deputy, but on the process, they have been waiting a long time. Once they are moved over along with the staff, the HSE has assured me locally, and I have made very up-to-date inquiries, that it has the resources staff-wise to be able to move and scale up to the 50-bed unit very quickly. Looking at the cycle of it, we are in the month of September and certainly it will not happen before the end of September. I think that is reasonable to say. We are looking, I hope, at it happening in the month of October. However, once again, I have to work within the parameters that are set down. The key element at the moment is for HIQA to give registration. Once the registration is granted, everything else will move along at pace. We will then have the new 50-bed community nursing home unit in Nenagh up and running.

I expect that will happen.

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