Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Question 80: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her plans to sell any land or property in 2010, the profits from which will be used in the mental health services; the funds that have been made available through the sales of such properties no longer required for residential mental health purposes; if a mechanism is in place to ring fence such funds; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6990/10]

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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One of the key priorities for mental health in the revised programme for Government, is the use of the proceeds of the sale of psychiatric lands to fund new mental health capital developments. This commitment reflects the recommendation in 'A Vision for Change' the report of the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy, that a plan to bring about the closure of all psychiatric hospitals should be drawn up and implemented and that the resources released by these closures should be re-invested in the mental health service.

Budget 2010 provided for a multi-annual programme of capital investment in high priority mental health projects and continued funding of the programme will be made in the 2011 Estimates and subsequent years, in the light of the previous year's programme of asset sales. In 2010, the HSE will dispose of surplus assets and reinvest an initial sum of €43 million in mental health infrastructure. The HSE has identified priority capital projects to be funded from the proceeds of such sales.

Prior to 2009 the HSE disposed of a small number of psychiatric properties and the proceeds of these sales was surrendered to the Exchequer; €25 million of these proceeds was provided to the HSE to fund mental health capital developments, through the Supplementary Estimate for 2009. Projects funded included, a day centre in Clonmel and two 20 bed child and adolescent in-patient units in Cork and Galway, which are currently under construction.