Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 135: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if she will give an assurance that the moneys realisable from the sale of psychiatric hospitals is likely to be sufficient to provide the level of community care required; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8764/06]

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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The report of the expert group on mental health policy, A Vision for Change, which was launched on 24 January last, outlines an active, flexible and community-based mental health service in which the need for hospital admission will be greatly reduced. Such a policy would require substantial funding. As there is considerable equity in buildings and lands in the mental health system that could be realised to fund the plan, the report recommends that steps be taken to bring about the closure of all psychiatric hospitals and to reinvest the resources released by such closures in the mental health service. The closure of large mental hospitals and the move to modern units attached to general hospitals, along with the expansion of community services, has been the policy of the Government since the publication of Planning for the Future in 1984.

A Vision for Change recommends that a four-stage process be pursued to effect the closure of psychiatric hospitals. First, the measures required to enable admission to cease should be identified and put in place. Second, admissions to the hospital should be ceased and plans for the relocation of existing patients should be drawn up. Third, plans for the relocation of existing patients should be implemented. Fourth, the hospital should be finally closed. The report emphasises that the process should take place on a phased basis with wards closing sequentially. The Health Service Executive anticipates that the closure of mental hospitals and the reinvestment of the proceeds will take place on a phased basis. It has emphasised that hospitals can close when the clinical needs of the remaining patients have been addressed in more appropriate settings, such as additional community residences, day hospitals and day centres. There will also have to be a substantial increase in the number of the well-trained, fully staffed, community-based and multi-disciplinary community mental health teams, in line with the recommendation in A Vision for Change.