Homes for mentally ill lying idle due to recruitment freeze
Three houses for the mentally ill refurbished to the tune of €500,000 are lying empty because of a staffing freeze, it emerged today.
The facilities in the midlands were renovated twice since bought 11 years ago and were due to be up and running for the first time last month.
But health bosses claim they cannot get the staff to fill them, despite having allocated patients.
The Labour Party branded the revelation highly unsatisfactory, claiming substantial cash had been forked out by the taxpayer.
Roisín Shorthall, social affairs spokesperson, told the Dáil’s public spending watchdog that families had repeatedly been given promises that were not met.
“The bottom line for the clients is that there isn’t a proper facility available for them and families have been promised,” she said.
“But from the point of view of the taxpayer, substantial money has been paid in refurbishment and you didn’t secure the necessary staff to open it.”
Laverne McGuinness, the HSE’s national director of primary, continuing and community care, said the houses at St Peter’s Hospital in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, were bought by the Mullingar Housing Association in 1998.
She said €508,000 had been spent on refurbishment and 17 patients were waiting to be accommodated, but the HSE recruitment embargo meant they cannot be opened.
“There is a moratorium in place now and we are obliged to work within the Governance of the moratorium,” she told the Dail Public Accounts Committee.
She said they faced difficulties in redeploying staff as they had to negotiate with unions.
Ms Shorthall demanded to know when the facilities would open and claimed the staff should have been in place, prompting a heated response from HSE boss Professor Brendan Drumm.
“No the moratorium came into play. How were we to predict the moratorium? That’s not being fair,” he said.
“We can’t employ the necessary staff, I’m not going to play games on this.
“We do not deal with the moratorium, when it’s Government policy we accept it.”
The health chief was forced to retract the suggestion Ms Shorthall was playing games after PAC chair Bernard Allen intervened.
Mr Allen asked how many other mental health facilities were lying idle around the country as he knew of two in Cork.
Mr Drumm said the HSE faced huge challenges as a result of the moratorium, claiming difficulties in redeploying staff were “potentially disastrous”.
Earlier Comptroller and Auditor General John Buckley said there had been a culture within the HSE of spending with a view that they would be given a top-up if they ran out of money.
Mr Drumm said it was no small matter to try and change that mindset.
“We would agree fully with the comments by the C&AG that we were dealing with an historic tendency to perhaps spend to a high-level during the year on the basis that there would be bail-out funding provided late in the year,” he said.
“It is no small matter to try and change that type of thinking across an organisation of this size in terms of a culture.”
