Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----construction site instead of taking the P-I-S-S out of their concerns. Shame on the Senator.

I would like some further clarification from the Minister on the national children's hospital. Do we know yet what the costs will be for outfitting? What about the required IT systems? BAM went under the banner, which was recently taken down, of the Considerate Constructors' scheme. Its revised costs are with the Minister, as are the revised timelines. We need to get a clearer idea of that. It is one of the biggest investments in health and it also feels as though an awful lot of extra money is being requested. BAM is coming on site and saying, "This was not agreed or that was not agreed." That might well be the point, but it seems as though it is putting the hand into the public purse all the time.

There is an excellent building already on the St. James's Hospital site, the Mercer's Institute for Successful Ageing, MISA, building, which is situated near the Rialto Luas stop. It cost €48 million and is three or four years old. I do not know the number of beds there. I have visited the facility in a Seanad capacity, but I would like to work out what that cost was per square metre. BAM also had that contract and then it got the contract for the national children's hospital. It seems that the MISA building was much more budget friendly and more prudent in the spending. With the children's hospital it seems to have gone off the Richter scale.

There is also the big cost associated with the homes that are being destroyed by the children's hospital construction. I know that people have had to go back to the courts. The houses have had three years of back wall cracking, which cracks are widening daily, and the backs of their houses are subsiding and falling into the ground. They were told and I also was told that this ground was black soil that could not be built on, and what would architects or surveyors have known 100 years ago, but they were indeed right. Those people have had to go back to the courts - I take Senator Coffey's point - to try to get their homes fit for purpose.It affects about 40 or 50 homes at the moment but it is expanding to that small historic estate. That is not to mention the rest of the surrounding areas. Residents are elderly. Many have lived there all their lives. People can put up with intrusion when it is necessary for an end result such as a health service fit for our children, however the way it has been done and the wait of three and a half years for home reconstruction is too much for elderly people who want to live their lives out in peace in their homes.

There is a worrying lack of detail in the capital plan. It reads more like a political wish list than a roadmap to better public health services. Some projects have vague timelines and figures attached. The plan states that the new mental health capital programme will be developed with a focus on upgrading existing facilities, replacing an appropriate community residential and non-residential, and continued expansion. Will this come from the overall capital budget or will it be new money? When will it be published? When will work commence? The lack of detail is worrying given the state of our mental health services and the state of the mental health budget for 2020. There are 4,000 children on CAMHS waiting lists, there are no child psychiatrists in the Wexford and Waterford area. They resigned en masse because of the facilities. These people were conducting assessments on young vulnerable children in corridors, store rooms and box rooms. Will that be addressed?

The plan does little to address massive overcrowding in our hospitals. Project Ireland 2040 gave a commitment to increase bed numbers by 2,600 over ten years, a commitment of 260 beds per annum. However the capital plan outlines delivery of 480 over three years. It is only 160 additional beds per annum. We know capacity is the issue. Wards are lying empty because of problems with recruitment and retention, something that is hardly addressed in this plan. That is also the case with mental health services. I welcome the national forensic mental health service's move to the Portrane site. It is about time that the old Victorian, caged prison-type of institution will become a forensic unit which hopefully will rehabilitate and help foster the well-being of those who have committed crimes. I have visited several times. The landscape in Portrane is quite haunting. The site is some 50 acres, with 15 acres taken over by the forensic hospital. What will happen to the rest? This is public land. It belongs to the people. I have never received a satisfactory answer as to what will happen to the site. When St. Brendan's in Grangegorman was closing we in the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA, tried to ensure that site would be used for psychiatric services. It is now the Grangegorman campus. We were promised the devil and all but nothing came of it. It returned to the ether.

We need an update of Project Ireland 2040, the capital tracker with the definitive detail of when exactly projects will commence and finish. We must be certain of delivery and timeframe.

The Minister of State referred to public nursing homes. I did not catch how many beds were involved. During the 1980s, Denmark realised the futility of building nursing homes. I like Senator Swanick's idea of going back to smaller community-based hospitals which catered so well for local communities. These were very much part of the community. Someone in Dublin would be lucky if they found a nursing home bed as close to them as Kildare.

Finally, I support Senator Freeman. We have been given promises. We would have to read between the lines and perhaps it is a bit naive that we did not. However, we did believe that the Future of Mental Health Care was to be re-established. It did fabulous work under Senator Freeman's guidance and gave voice to those who would not have been heard otherwise.