Central Mental Hospital: Private Members' Motion
Dr. Henry: I move:
In view of the proposals by the Department of Finance to raise funds by the sale of some Office of Public Works property, Seanad Éireann calls on the Minister for Finance to apportion the first moneys raised to the building of the long-proposed new Central Mental Hospital at Dundrum in view of the disgraceful conditions under which the patients in the present hospital are kept, despite repeated condemnation by international human rights bodies.
I am delighted to see the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, in the House. He is in charge of the important area of the sale of Government property. The Government does not have any more money of its own. Senator Brian Hayes was giving out during the last debate that I am always saying that the Minister for Finance should come to the House to discuss health matters, as the Minister for Health and Children has no money and the Minister for Finance makes the decisions. In reality, the Minister for Finance has no money of his own. The money he has is ours - it is taxpayers' money. As a compliant taxpayer for 35 years, I like to know what is happening to my money.
Most of the money raised by the State comes from taxpayers. It comes from people like me in the PAYE sector who send in their subscriptions on a regular basis. However, we seem to have little control over what happens to our money. Even if one is a Member of Seanad Éireann, it is very difficult to have much say over what happens with money because money Bills are not looked on in any favourable in the House. One cannot bring forward Private Members' Bills that would involve any cost to the Exchequer. We are, therefore, in quite a weak position, but we have some sort of duty to try to express our opinions on how money is being spent.
Over the years, taxpayers' money has been spent on buying property which is managed, on behalf of the State, by the Office of Public Works. I am sure it is managed very well. From time to time, the OPW sells various properties and buys others. However, it is not really involved in any major sales. We have made some major purchases such as Farmleigh House, the renovations to which cost a considerable amount. I did not make too many objections to that because I was of the opinion that if it was going to be a useful institution for the State, so be it.
The Department of Finance recently announced that there will be a sale of State property and that the Minister of State will be in charge of this. I am sure he is a very suitable person to be in charge of the sale which, it has been stated, will raise up to €100 million. That is a great deal of money. At the launch of the Office of Public Work's annual report last Monday, the Minister of State said that there are five to six sites of varying values which could be sold to raise this €100 million. I do not expect the Minister of State, for commercial reasons, to provide a list of all the sites he proposes to put forward for sale within the next year or so because that would not help in terms of their final sale price. On the other hand, I would like to know some of those that are going to come up for sale in the near future which will cause no concern on the property market. The Minister of State and the Department of Finance will have ideas about what should be done with the money. However, Members and people in general will also have ideas. It is a great pity that such a small number of people seem to have any input into how this not inconsiderable amount of money from the sale of our property is to be used.
Senator O'Rourke has tabled an amendment to the motion. The property in Lad Lane has been recognised as the first property that the Minister of State is going to put on the market. The amendment to my motion supports the proposal by the Minister of State to use funds raised by the sale of the Office of Public Works property at Lad Lane for a list of what appear to be quite worthy programmes. Why was there no discussion among other Members with regard to where we thought that money could best be spent? I am sure that the National Educational Psychology Service needs money for a regional office to expand its service, but I do not know that it is more worthy than the cause I put forward tonight. Senator O'Rourke's amendment refers to "the purchase of sites for the Garda building programme to accelerate the provision of new Garda stations across the country". We have already heard that various Garda stations are going to be sold. Would it not be possible to use the money from some of those sales to finance the provision of the new stations to which the amendment refers in order that funding can be provided for projects which some of the rest of us think are important? I feel that very narrow criteria are being used to consider how the money should be spent and that my suggestion is as good as any other. The Minister of State has earmarked Lad Lane for this, but I suggest that we should raise money for a new Central Mental Hospital. Senators Feighan, Mansergh and Quinn may each have projects to which they would prefer the money was given. We are all entitled to further discussions regarding how these moneys are being spent.
The Central Mental Hospital was built in 1852 and, because it has been carefully maintained and is in exactly the same state as when it was built, it is a listed building and cannot be altered. I do not know that this could be described as a great triumph for the State because within that hospital are some very ill people with serious psychiatric diseases who have no hope of improving in such a therapeutic environment. A total of 57 of them sleep on concrete plinths in single cells. I suppose they are not cages because they have walls, but there is no window except at roof level. There is no sanitation, so patients have to defecate and urinate into plastic buckets and slop out every morning. For people in the whole of their health this would be bad enough, but for those who are really ill it is utterly appalling.
It is approximately 20 years since a Minister for Health visited the hospital. Barry Desmond was the last Minister to go there, prior to Deputy Martin's recent visit. Deputy Martin's visit was arranged after it became well known that President McAleese was going to visit the institution. The Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform also visited the hospital. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy O'Malley, promised me in a debate on psychiatric services that he would visit it and he was as good as his word.
The Minister for Health and Children was reported in the paper as saying that the conditions there were "grim, grim". Good and all as are the Minister of State's projects, I do not believe anyone is saying that there are Garda stations which are "grim, grim" or that the premises of the National Educational Psychology Service are "grim, grim". Who is responsible for prioritising the way in which the money raised from the sale of State property will be spent?
The plans for this new hospital have been in existence for approximately ten years. It was intended to build it in the grounds of the existing campus at Dundrum. The original cost was estimated at £34 million, but I suppose it would cost much more now. The sale of the Lad Lane property would subscribe at least a third of the price. We introduced in a Mental Health Act last year, but we cannot possibly enforce it because we do not have the necessary resources or facilities. There is a Criminal Insanity Amendment Bill before the House. I pointed out that it was quite impossible to bring this in because the resources are not available to allow us to transport people from the courts to secure hospital instead of to prisons. The Minister for Justice and Law Reform stated that he wants to close down the padded cells in prisons, but where is he going to put the people who inhabit them? I have never seen such fanciful planning in my life in respect of legislation, but it seems to be somewhat prevalent in the Oireachtas.
In England, public private partnerships have been put in place - I am not opposed to anything of this nature - where hospitals are built by the private sector. However, this is a costly process because the institution involved usually has to take out either a mortgage or a lease to pay back the private company and some of its resources have to be spent on repayments. We could do something like that in Dundrum, but this is exactly the sort of thing the amendment indicates that the Minister of State is trying to stop by buying off leaseholds of properties currently occupied by the State on a long-term payment basis in order to reduce the Office of Public Works' ongoing rent roll in the future. That is a line of progress which will not be very good because the Office of Public Works does not want to do it here so I presume it does not want the State doing it in another direction by getting involved in a public private partnership.
I suggest that we ring-fence the money that will accrue from these various sales because I have a horrid suspicion that some of it is going to flow back into the Department of Finance and be used to shore up the deficit or deal with whatever other problems exist. I am sure the projects listed in the amendment are very worthy, but I do not believe they are as worthy that which I have put forward. I also do not believe that Members or anyone else is being granted sufficient input into how this money, which will be raised by the sale of our property, will be distributed.
Dr. Henry: I thank the Senators from all sides of the House who took a sympathetic approach to the problem I was trying to explain to the Minister of State. I also thank the Minister of State for his approach.
I echo what Senator Glynn said about the staff of the Central Mental Hospital. The conditions are bad for the patients, but they are just as bad for the staff. They must also endure them. To try to ensure a therapeutic milieu in a place like that is verging on the impossible. What they are trying to do is unbelievable - I do not know how they manage it. One former director of the hospital left after about ten years because, as he told me, he felt such a failure for not persuading us politicians to do something about the conditions. That was years ago. Senator Ryan rightly said that if we do something about it, there are no votes in it, but if we do not, there are also no votes. By "we" I mean the Government, but we all have some responsibility in this matter.
I am disappointed the Minister of State does not feel he could fund my hospital. However, I am not totally defeated because he brought up the matter of public private partnerships, as I did when I spoke. This is how some big psychiatric hospitals in the UK have been funded. I do not know whether it is necessarily the best way, but it should be considered. In fact, it is not a good idea, because we are already trying to cut down on rents and mortgages being paid by the State, but we may still have to consider it because, as I said earlier, the Minister for Health and Children has no money. We must get money somehow.
I am most anxious that money from the sale of public assets could leak into the general coffers of the Department of Finance. This is why I mentioned ring-fencing. Nobody spoke against selling off property that is not being used. It is ridiculous to keep something as an empty monument. Senator Mansergh was clever to get in his bid for the local Garda station for his community groups. I am not picking out the Garda as being undeserving of having their buildings renovated or replaced, but gardaí would be some of those most sympathetic to the need to rebuild the Central Mental Hospital because they must bring patients to that institution.
I regret that the Government could not allow the motion to go forward, at least as a pious hope. The amendment, at least, explains what is to happen to the Lad Lane money, but there should be far more suggestions put forward about what is to happen to all the money that will come from these sales. I appreciate that the press is inclined to exaggerate in whatever direction it likes, but there should be more openness in terms of the projects we can support. Perhaps the Department could consider once again the possibility of a public private partnership in Dundrum.
Amendment put and declared carried.
Dr. Henry: I wish to record my dissent.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
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