Human rights body to inspect planned mental health facility in Cork for UN convention breaches
Serious concerns have been raised around plans to locate a 50-bed long-stay residential mental health unit for people with severe and long-term mental illness on an isolated site, which has no footpath access or services nearby.
Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide said plans for the €64m unit at St Stephen's Hospital at Sarsfield's Court, Glanmire, represent a "complete reversal" of a move towards keeping people in their own communities.
"This makes no sense. The only sense it makes is financial sense for the HSE to centralise a lot of its staffing costs into one area in a site that they own themselves. But it's very much against the interests of the residents who will be there into the future," Mr Quaide told an Oireachtas committee.
"There's no footpath even connecting St Stephen's Hospital to the nearest service station, which is 1.7 kilometres away. The nearest retail centre is three kilometres away in Riverstown, there's no footpath for the first kilometre of that.
"There's no community amenities within walking distance of St Stephen's. There's no plans to develop any and the cohort of service users who would become residents there, many would have mobility issues, most or all would not drive," Mr Quaid, who worked as a senior clinical psychologist, said.
In 2023, Cork County Council wrote to the HSE after councillors unanimously backed a call to oppose the plans to build the unit at St Stephen's Hospital.
Mr Quaide said he had repeatedly raised the issue both as a councillor and now as a TD, but it "feels like an unstoppable process" as he claimed "the agency is intent on pushing ahead with this".
"I feel very strongly about it because I worked in the mental health services in Cork as a psychologist, and I've seen the benefits of the same services in Cork adhering to our national mental health policies over the years, by facilitating the re-integration of long-stay patients of institutional facilities back into their communities."
The Cork East TD put it to Irish Human Rights and Equality chief commissioner Liam Herrick, who was appearing before the disabilities committee, that the development would result in "a blatant breach" of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Mr Quaide:
It will be a far-reaching, permanent breach, because the proposal is for a centralised residential mental health service that will detach people from their community of origin, and in fact, from any setting that vaguely represents community living.
While acknowledging he did not have full details of the case, Mr Herrick said the information outlined by the TD appeared to "engage" with the protections provided for in the UN Convention as well as "other rights and equality standards".
Mr Herrick said: "We have a wide range of statutory functions and powers. I'd be happy to engage with you further, maybe learn more about the instance, and then we can explore if any of our powers or functions may be relevant in the area.
"But on the face of it, I can say that the situation you outline does engage with those issues [contained in the UN Charter], and we'd be happy to consider further."
Mr Quaide said there is no issue with the site as a location for a new elective hospital and acute inpatient mental health admissions, as is also planned, because those admissions are generally short term.
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