New mental hospital will not be built at Thornton Hall

A NEW central mental hospital will not now be built at the Thornton Hall prison site in north Dublin, Minister of State for Health John Moloney confirmed.

However, he denied Opposition claims of a U-turn.

During health question time in the Dáil, Mr Moloney said that the site was too small for the redevelopment of the hospital. The Government had previously insisted that it would be sited with a new prison, despite major opposition.

The State paid €30 million for 150 acres in 2005, of which 20 acres were designated for the replacement facility for the Central Mental Hospital, but the Minister said yesterday that it was too small for what was required.

It was a Government priority to “fast track” the building of the hospital. He is “working on” a site location, but is not in a position to say where it will be.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly welcomed the decision to abandon Thornton Hall, even though the Government had earlier been “hell bent on making it the site”.

Labour spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan also welcomed the decision, describing Mr Moloney’s comments as “the cleverest U-turn I have heard announced in a long time”.

Mr Moloney said that the HSE “has identified a need for an intellectual disability forensic mental health unit and a child and adolescent forensic mental health unit. Neither of these units would be viable as a stand-alone facility and they should be co-located with the CMH, but the 20-acre site at Thornton Hall is not large enough to allow for these additional developments.”

He said that constructing the units away from the main hospital “would incur increased capital and revenue costs”. None of the work to date had been “site specific”, but the planning process for the project “will soon need to become site specific”.

But Ms O’Sullivan asked “how did these two units that will no longer fit out there anymore suddenly appear on this horizon”.

She added that “it is extraordinary that we are casually being told this site is not big enough after all the trauma the various groups and families have gone through in the last couple of years”.

Dr Reilly suggested that since Thornton Hall was “no longer a runner”, the Government should consider going ahead with the original plan the CMH had for using the existing grounds to build a new facility.

Mr Moloney said that he had made it clear some months ago in discussions with Central Mental Hospital personnel “that Dundrum would not be a runner”.

He added that Minister for Health Mary Harney had “never made an order to me that it had to be Thornton Hall, although I was asked to proceed as quickly as possible with a new central mental hospital. “The only real change is the fact that we are coming to a site-specific decision.”

Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin also welcomed the decision, but said that there was “no recognition” by Ms Harney or the department that “the proposition to site at Thornton Hall was wrong in the first instance”.

Mr Moloney insisted that “is it not by way of just coming to a decision quickly, dishonestly, by a U-turn or whatever the Opposition wants to say”. It was a matter of “doing the right thing to provide a central mental hospital as quickly”.

“It’s a matter of the recession,” said Dr Reilly.