Staff have been told to “flush the toilets” in a new state-of-the-art residential mental health facility after complaining of strong smells of sewage type gases.

A €13m, purpose-built mental health unit for long-term psychiatric patients opens in Co Kerry today but nurses’ unions are warning that a low skill model of staff ratio and failure to reach levels of experienced staff will lead to more assaults on nurses.

The HSE has moved to reassure those concerned about derelict, or mostly unused, properties it owns that steps are being taken to ensure they do not meet the same fate as the St Kevin’s facility in Cork which was gutted by fire this week.