David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and, given my experience of him in the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs where he showed himself to clear-sighted, forthright and open to argument, I am glad he is in charge of these proposals. He is prepared to take risks from time to time.

I endorse what has been said by my colleagues, particularly Senator Ivana Bacik, about the location and development of this site. Of course one welcomes the end to slopping out, an appalling and barbarous procedure that was against the interests of inmates. I agree with her that we must look carefully at the issue of women prisoners.

I will put down an amendment to the Broadcasting Bill to ensure that people who fail to pay the television licence fee will not be subject to prison terms. There was recently a case of a young single mother in Cork who was jailed for non-payment of the television licence fee and her son was traumatised as a result. This is completely inappropriate. The more prisons we build, the more likely we are to fill them. Prison is an inappropriate treatment for many prisoners, not just women but men also.

The topic I wish to raise, the relocation of the Central Mental Hospital to the Thornton Hall site, is related to this subject and I propose to deal with it because it is indicated that a site has been reserved on the map. A very important report on the Central Mental Hospital round table meeting, Patients not Prisoners, was published on Tuesday this week. The Central Mental Hospital's carers group, the Irish Mental Health Coalition, Schizophrenia Ireland and a number of other groups were involved. It is important that we examine this aspect of the development of the Thornton Hall site because, at this stage, no clear decision that cannot be reversed has been taken. The decision can be reversed and the Minister of State is the right person todo so.

From a political point of view the relocation of the Central Mental Hospital to Thornton Hall conflicts with the Government's excellent statements in its policy document, A Vision for Change. There it is stated that the Central Mental Hospital should be replaced or remodelled to allow the provision of care and treatment in a modern, up to date and humane setting. This flows from inspections carried out by the Council of Europe committee for the prevention of cruel and inhuman treatment and torture. The committee visited Dundrum in 1998, 2002 and 2006 and on foot of its report a decision was made that the facilities there were inadequate.

It is many years since I visited a patient in Dundrum and on that occasion the conditions were appalling. I am glad that they have altered and that there is now a full-fledged therapeutic environment, although nobody doubts that the facilities must be updated. However, the relocation to Thornton Hall will be damaging because there is a possibility of contamination and stigmatisation by osmosis. I do not wish to further stigmatise the prisoners but it is clear that patients in the Central Mental Hospital are not prisoners; they are patients and have been deemed as such.

In the existing situation, while the buildings are inappropriate, the location is as good as one can get. There is access on foot from the city centre and the surrounding suburbs and also by rail, bus, taxi and Luas. The current location has the works in this regard. In these circumstances we must consider not only patients but also families and visitors. The Dundrum facility has existed for 150 years and the local community has absorbed it so there will be no great impact by retaining and redeveloping it. However, there could be an impact resulting from the Thornton Hall location as one does not know what the attitude of the surrounding community might be.

If the hospital is redeveloped on the Thornton Hall site the patients will face increased isolation. Low security patients in Dundrum are already permitted to take part in various courses, including college and university courses, and they have access to rehabilitative facilities in the city. This is important. A distinguished Australian expert in this area concluded that the therapeutic culture enshrined in Dundrum could be seriously undermined by a move to Thornton Hall.

There is a strong economic argument for opposing the move. Mr. Jim Power, a significant economic commentator, indicated that the proposed relocation is a worst case scenario that looked as though it had been planned on the back of an envelope. He said there is a better economic case for redeveloping the facility in Dundrum. There is a 34 acre site there of which 14 acres could be sold to generate around €140 million. This would more than pay for the development of the hospital, leaving 20 acres for the hospital to be redeveloped; effectively a greenfield site.

One of the Minister of State's colleagues on the radio yesterday said we could not carry out both projects together. Why not? The Minister for Health and Children, who is not unknown to the Minister of State, is a passionate advocate of co-location. It is not beyond the wit of man or woman to build while maintaining existing facilities — there would, after all, be a 20 acre site. It would be possible to co-locate a building site and hospital and it would be positive. Such a project would be revenue neutral and a small profit might even be made. There would continue to be a land bank there.

The Irish Human Rights Commission, which was appointed by the Government, said it is gravely concerned at what it calls a "highly inappropriate proposal". The Government must listen to organisations of this calibre that makes such statements. There is nothing from the Government to support the case for the decision. It has yet to produce a legally required cost-benefit analysis of the options.

There is a series of reasons the hospital should not be moved. It is against the Government's policy. There has been no consultation whatever so far with the users and their families. I met families of patients in Dundrum before Christmas, just last week and within recent days, and they are passionate about the issue. I am using this opportunity to respectfully ask the Government to reconsider the decision in the light of its own policies and from the point of view of convenience for public transport, access to local facilities and the general location. A community has been built up around the hospital. Staff live locally and patients feel safe going to local shops.

I will end by quoting one of the people who briefed me on this. She asked her son what he thought of the Central Mental Hospital going to Thornton Hall and his reply was that people would think the patients were prisoners, not people with mental illness, and that he would be too afraid to go outside as the proposed site is in the middle of nowhere. The Minister of State is the appropriate person to start the process of re-examining this question before facts emerge from the situation on the ground.