Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 30: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her plans to relocate the Central Mental Hospital to an existing psychiatric institution (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26370/09]

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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In May 2006 the Government confirmed the decision to develop a new Central Mental Hospital, CMH, at Thornton Hall, County Dublin. Since then, a draft project brief has been prepared and a cost-benefit analysis completed. None of the work undertaken to date has been site specific but a number of difficulties have emerged with the Thornton Hall site. The HSE has identified a need for an intellectual disability forensic mental health unit and a child and adolescent forensic mental health unit. Neither of these units would be viable as a stand-alone facility and they should be co-located with the CMH, but the 20-acre site at Thornton Hall is not large enough to allow for these additional developments.

The construction of these additional units at a location separate to the CMH would incur increased capital and revenue costs. The planning and design process for the CMH redevelopment project will soon need to become site specific and all of the issues involved are being considered. The Deputy can be assured that if the Government decides to change the location of the new hospital, the HSE will, in due course, undertake a consultation exercise with stakeholders.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Clearly the Thornton Hall site is no longer a runner. Is that correct? Is it the case that the CMH is no longer going out there and the PPP is no longer a prospect? I am trying to interpret what the Minister of State has told me.

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The response goes on to make the point that it was never site specific, but a time is arriving when it needs to be site specific. I had a meeting with Dr. Harry Kennedy and his people in the hospital some months ago and I made it clear that the Government's priority is to fast-track the building of a central mental hospital. Nothing has changed since then. The Government must decide on a site specific location and the Government is doing that.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Forgive me, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but I thought we had a long debate in this House about how we did not consider that Thornton Hall was an appropriate site although the Government was intent on making it the site. Clearly it has now moved position and I welcome that. I equally welcome the fact that we need to fast-track a new central mental hospital. However our interpretation of the word "fast" when it comes to central mental hospitals or co-locations seems to be at variance with one another.

It was recently reported in the newspapers that the Central Mental Hospital is no longer in a position to take new admissions because it is so full. Would the Government consider proceeding with the original plan the Central Mental Hospital had for using the existing grounds in the area to build a new facility which would overcome many of the difficulties and issues which had been originally raised by Schizophrenia Ireland, Friends of the CMH and Amnesty International, to mention but a few from a long list?

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to be definite on this. When I held the meeting in Dundrum at the invitation of Dr. Kennedy some months ago I made it clear that Dundrum would not be a runner. I also made it clear that upon taking up my role in the Department of Health and Children the Minister, Deputy Harney never made an order to me that it had to be Thornton Hall, although I was asked to proceed as quickly as possible with a new central mental hospital. We are coming to a time when we must be site-specific but the real issue has been to ensure we build a new central mental hospital. The only change is the fact that we are coming to a site-specific decision.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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I welcome this, the cleverest U-turn I have heard announced in a long time.

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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No.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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It was so subtle the Minister of State did not even realise it himself.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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I do not understand why we were all brought out to look at this site. What sort of planning is this? How did these two units that will no longer fit suddenly appear on the horizon? Did the Minister of State not know he needed them before this site was suggested? It is extraordinary that we are casually being told this site is not big enough after all the trauma the various groups and families have gone through in the he last couple of years.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is important to welcome what the Minister of State has said but to add that it does not arise from a recognition on the part of the Department, Minister, her colleagues or the HSE that the proposition to site at Thornton Hall was wrong in the first instance. It is a quirk of fate. Welcome though it is, it is important to recognise that is the case. Question No. 30 asks the Minister her "plans to relocate the Central Mental Hospital to an existing psychiatric institution (details supplied)". At no time in the Minister of State's comments or Deputy Reilly's remarks were these details supplied. Can the Minister of State share with the House the site-specific existing psychiatric institution to which the question refers?

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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There are many questions but I will try to answer them. First, this is not a U-turn. Dr. Kennedy will confirm that I made a visit on my first day in office. I made it clear to him that my instructions were to proceed as quickly as possible to build a new central mental hospital. I told him the only commitment I could give him was that it would not be Dundrum, for many reasons, including the fact that the sale of the property could provide value towards providing further mental health services. It is not by way of coming to a decision quickly, dishonestly, by a U-turn, or whatever the Opposition Members want to say. It was always a matter of the Minister making it clear that we needed a new central mental hospital. Thornton Hall was picked because it would expedite that process.

When leaving after a two-hour meeting I told Dr. Kennedy that he would not wake up some day and read in the newspapers that the central mental hospital was moving to Thornton Hall. It was the only game in town at that time and I was working with the Minister to locate a site. I am working on that. I am not in a position to say where it will be located except to say that I had the opportunity to present the case to Government last Tuesday. It is not a matter of waving flags and saying we did something because we responded to pressure. It is a matter of doing the right thing to provide a central mental hospital as quickly as possible.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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It is a matter of the recession.