Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 83: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the reason the Health Service Executive is undertaking a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it would be cheaper to redevelop the Central Mental Hospital on its existing site; if the Central Mental hospital will go ahead at the Thornton site; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9384/08]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 144: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will review the decision to transfer the Central Mental Hospital from Dundrum to Thornton Hall; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9310/08]

Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 144 together.

The Government decision in May 2006 to approve the development of a new national forensic mental health facility at Thornton Hall, County Dublin, also required that a cost-benefit analysis be carried out. Department of Finance guidelines require that all projects over €30 million are subject to a cost-benefit analysis. This cost-benefit analysis is currently being undertaken and is expected to be completed by the end of March.

The new hospital facility will provide a therapeutic, forensic psychiatric service to the highest international standards in a state-of–the-art building. The decision to relocate the Central Mental Hospital is consistent with A Vision for Change, the report of the expert group on mental health policy, which recommends that the Central Mental Hospital should be replaced or remodelled to allow it to provide care and treatment in a modern, up-to-date humane setting and that capacity should be maximised.

The redevelopment of the Central Mental Hospital will constitute a separate capital development project independent of the prison complex to replace Mountjoy Prison and will be owned and managed by the Health Service Executive. The new hospital will be built on its own campus and will retain its identity as a distinct therapeutic health facility with a separate entrance and address to the prison complex.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I am glad to hear a cost-benefit analysis is being done. Was a cost-benefit analysis done before the site was bought, given the extraordinary sum which was paid for it? I had hoped the Minister and the Minister of State would have taken on board the concerns of the professionals involved in the service, outside professionals and voluntary groups and their dismay at the thought that psychiatrically ill patients would be placed on a site beside a penal institution and would be stigmatised as criminals when their problem is one of mental heath.

I had hoped the Minister of State would say the Government was considering leaving it at the site in Drundrum where there is ample land and where there would still be land left over to provide money for the HSE. We would hope that money would be ring-fenced for psychiatric services. What was the initial cost of this project? Was the original plan a mere fig leaf for the Government to justify the extraordinary sum paid for the prison site?

Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I do not have the figure with me but I will get it for the Deputy.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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I presume the Minister of State is aware of a wide group of interests which have come together to oppose the moving of the site. Views have been expressed by organisations such as GROW, Aware, the Irish Civil Rights Commission, various unions, Amnesty International, Bodywhys, the Central Mental Hospital carers group, etc. All of them are strongly opposed to moving the Central Mental Hospital from Dundrum.

Is the Minister of State aware that Jim Power, chief economist of Friends First, of all people, has done an economic analysis suggesting that of the 34 acres in Dundrum, it would be possible to sell some of the land and redevelop the site in a cost effective manner? Will the proposal to move the Central Mental Hospital be reconsidered in view of these widespread concerns and the alternative economic analysis of the situation?

Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will agree that the current location of the Central Mental Hospital, which was opened in 1850, is not suitable for a modern forensic psychiatric service.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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Is the Minister of State talking about the building or the site?

Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I am talking about the building. The need to develop a new Central Mental Hospital is the responsibility of the HSE. A project team is progressing the development of the new hospital which will have a complement of 120 as distinct from 85 beds as at present. I should add that additional funding was provided in 2007 to enable the development of West Lodge, which is a high support community based residence in Lucan for six patients. The facility has been opened and patients have been placed there on a temporary basis pending finalisation of the formal approval of the relocation by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The list a previous speaker read out of organisations and voices opposed to the proposition of siting the Central Mental Hospital on the same site as the new so-called super prison to be located at Thornton Hall is not exhaustive. Without question, one could add to that list the Mental Health Commission, the clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital, the families and carers of the patients in the hospital and the Human Rights Commission, to name but a small number of additional voices which have roundly rejected the proposition. What is it that outweighs the concerns voiced by these eminent organisations and has the Department locked into proceeding with this proposal to co-locate the Central Mental Hospital's new facility adjacent to a super-prison? What information is guiding this obstinacy on the part of the Department of Health and Children with regard to what is, in the view of the greater number of Members of this House, including those on the Government benches, and all of the people concerned, an ill thought out and deeply wounding proposal?

Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that the Central Mental Hospital's new facility will be adjacent to the prison being built to replace Mountjoy. However, it is important to stress that the project relating to the former is stand alone in nature. The new facility will, therefore, have a separate entrance to the prison. There will also be separate road access. From an organisational point of view, it will be operated by the HSE and not the Irish Prison Service. It is incorrect to state otherwise.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It will have a separate entrance. That is absolutely wonderful.

Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State has experience as a physician. Does he not agree with the advice that was offered by a number of experts — including some from Australia and New Zealand — in recent times in respect of this matter to the effect that locating a therapeutic hospital beside a custodial establishment is the wrong way to proceed? The experts to whom I refer also referred to the inevitability of the culture of and approach taken by the hospital becoming more custodial rather than therapeutic in nature. A hospital is a place of recovery, not one of control. It was stated that where such co-location has occurred in other countries, members of staff from custodial institutions have been used to contain difficulties that arise in the adjacent hospitals. It is inevitable that the latter will happen and this will lead to the Central Mental Hospital being stigmatised.

Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I must point out that the Mater Hospital, a medical institution of world renown, is located adjacent to Mountjoy Prison.

Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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That is a completely different situation. We are discussing a forensic hospital.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Will the Minister of State clarify the position?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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We must proceed to the next question.