€48m Ballymun health centre lies unoccupied

A new health centre in the €60 million Ballymun civic centre in north Dublin, has remained unoccupied for a year at an estimated cost of €3.5 million because health authorities have not sanctioned the fitting out costs.

The new health centre, an integral part of the plan for the regeneration of Ballymun was to be one of the largest in the State, with the potential to provide dental and social services, as well as primary medical care, to more than 100,000 people across the northside of Dublin.

The total cost of the new health centre is €56 million which the Northern Area Health Board said it intends paying for over 14 years.

The fit-out costs for the building are in the region of €8 million, but this money has not been sanctioned by the health Board and is now unlikely to be approved before the restructuring of the health authority after the local elections, this June. The cost of the centre, less the fit-out, comes in at €48 million or €3.5 million a year under the 14 year programme. By June when the current health boards are expected to be abolished, the health centre will have been vacant for 18 months.

The Northern Area Health Board is also renting space in Santry and Whitehall to ease pressure on the current health centre in Ballymun, which has been described as "run-down".

The situation has been described as a "scandal" by the Dublin North West TD Ms Róisín Shortall who plans to raise it on the adjournment debate in the Dáil tomorrow.

According to Deputy Shortall the current health centre at the rear of the shopping centre is attempting to deal with the local population of 15,000 people in "typically high dependency circumstances and is facing a huge demand for its services". This week the Northern Area Health Board issued a statement saying it was "anxious to move into the new building so that the facilities for existing services can be greatly improved and enhanced.

"Our board is in discussions with the Eastern regional Health Authority on funding for this project" it said.

The statement acknowledged the centre was first promoted as far back as 1996 to "be part of a central civic amenity building which would form the centrepiece for the redevelopment of Ballymun Town Centre, which is itself a key element for the planned regeneration of Ballymun".

But while Ballymun Regeneration Limited is among the agencies with offices in the new civic centre, the health centre has remained unopened.

A spokesman for the health board emphasised that the building had not been yet handed over to the Northern Area Health Board and a decision on that was a matter for the health authority and the Department.

However, a community Development worker in Ballymun Ms Claire Casey said keeping the building empty made no sense. "This is part of the primary care strategy which will survive the health boards restructuring, this is what they strategy is all about. It is crazy not to open it now".

Ms Casey said the health centre was the central element in "really serious anger in the community".

But she added that the lack of a promised new Garda station in the area, alongside cuts at community creches had also upset local people. "Many agencies including health, justice, enterprise and social welfare are supposed to be playing a part in the social integration projects in Ballymun, but the cuts and the waste make it unnecessarily difficult", she said.