This is from today's Breakingnews.ie

Report backs retention of mental hospital in Dundrum

A new report says it would be cheaper to build a new Central Mental Hospital in the Dundrum area of Dublin rather than relocate the existing one to Thornton Hall.

The Government is planning to move the hospital to the new prison complex being proposed for north Co Dublin.

However, an assessment by economist Jim Power says 14 acres of the current hospital site could be sold and the hospital rebuilt on the remainder of the site.

He says the sale of these 14 acres could fetch €140m, while it would cost around €100m to build the new hospital.

The proposal to relocate the mental hospital to Thornton Hall has been heavily criticised on grounds of difficulty of visiting and also totally inappropriate association of mental disorder with criminality.

The Central Mental Hospital at Dundrum has been praised in recent years for its innovative worka on therapeutic treatment, achieved operating out of outdated buildings.

The decision to move the hospital to Thornton Hall appears to be one of several major infrastructural decisions that has taken in total disregard to the best interests of the service users (Children's hospital, Metro North, Thornton Hall Prison, Bertie Bowl).

Its hard to see why this option was not looked at in the first place.

Is it time to call a halt to this irrationality?

To add to that, the idea that public projects should be funded by selling off precious publically-owned lands for private development is dubious logic. The State needs to have a land bank for the medium and long term future and the way things are going everything will be built over. Nearly all institutions tend to need to expand over time.

It is a pity that the Central Mental Hospital is not staying where it is. On the other hand, can patients really wait for them to sell 14 acres and then come up with plans to redevelop the rest of the site and then go and carry out the redevelopment works?

I heard Eamonn Gilmore saying last night that John Gormley could have stopped to Tara motorway. At some point we have to accept that decisions have been made and we are too far down the road to change course. Otherwise the changed decisions are also be open to question and the merry-go-round never stops. Nobody in the private sector would co-operate, projects would hit quick sand all the time and the country would turn into a basket case.

We have had an unprecedented opportunity to invest in public infrastructure over the past five years and are committing to spend into the next five. Much of the money has been thrown away on poorly planned vanity projects. These capital development construction projects will remain in place for a very long time and will continue to cost us in different ways.

Where decisions are shown to be damaging, and where no contracts have been entered in to in relation to development, I can see no justification for pouring money into setting a bad decision in concrete.

This is an online petition that sets out some of the Dundrum issues:

Dear Mary Harney,

I am asking for your support to reverse the Government's decision to relocate the Dundrum Central Mental Hospital to a site adjacent to the Mountjoy Prison site in Thornton Hall.

This decision will stigmatise the people with mental illness and make their rehabilitation and re-integration into communities and the workforce extremely difficult. Relocation to Thornton Hall would be against the best interest of both service users and their families and is contrary to international best practice and and human rights standards. The site is also remote from all public transport.

The decision is opposed by the by the Mental Health Commission and is contrary to the national policy framework, "A Vision for Change" launched in January 2006 which requires a community treatment focus. The Government-appointed human rights watchdog, the Human Rights Commission, has also said that it is "gravely concerned" at this "highly inappropriate" proposal.

The Thornton Hall proposal must be abandoned in favour of one that respects the human rights of service users.

Link to report re Jim Power's recommendations
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0527/breaking30.htm

Link to Government Press release
http://www.dohc.ie/press/releases/2006/20060516.html

http://www.sirl.ie/news_info.php?id=32

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2007/06/01/story34035.asp

From Breaking News.

Quote :

Placing the Central Mental Hospital beside a super prison in north Co
Dublin will isolate patients and reinforce stigmas liked to mental
illness, experts warned the Oireachtas Health Committee today.

The
Mental Health Commission and the Irish Mental Health Coalition were
speaking to the all-party body after TDs and Senators toured the
proposed site of the new facility in Thornton Hall.

Full Story


Someone on the radio made a good point that patients near the end of their recovery are currently able to go out to the cinema, shops etc. and some get part time jobs. This would not be possible in Thornton Hall..

This land cost the taxpayer €100,000 per acre. Now it looks like a cockup.

https://machinenation.forumakers.com/national-politics-f32/mental-hospital-should-stay-at-dundrum-t698.htm

Just a link to the earlier discussion on this.

They seem to be doing some really good work at the Central Mental Hospital and there is plenty of land there on which a new hospital could be developed.

Oh. I forgot about that thread.

I'll move the post to that one.

Its good to know that this still isn't settled.