HSE pays €1m for ‘unusable’ care facility

The HSE has paid almost €1m to lease a primary care unit in Cork City that has been lying idle for at least four years.

The HSE made the payment for the Cork unit earlier this month based on an arrangement it entered into with Cork City Council in 2005.

The unit has since been deemed too small to meet primary care requirements and a new centre is now planned for the area.

However, the HSE still intends to lease the space.

The HSE has yet to enter the unit and has failed to say when it will be come operational.

It has paid €956,000 for the space at a building on Harbour View Rd, Knocknaheeny, Cork City.

It is understood that the space has been vacant since 2008.

In 2005, the health service entered an arrangement with the council to provide primary care services at the new development.

Fine Gael senator Colm Burke, who raised the issue in the Seanad recently, said that he was concerned about why the council would wait four years to be paid after agreeing to provide a lease.

Mr Burke said the sum paid by the HSE was “a lot of money in the current financial climate”, especially when another primary care unit was being planned for the area atSt Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital.

He said he was seeking clarity on when the centre would be operational, and questioned why the HSE sought to follow through on plans to take up the lease when it had emerged that the unit was too small.

According to Alex White, the minister of state with responsibility for primary care, the agreement was made prior to the development of the current strategy for primary care centres.

“The building is deemed by the HSE to be considerably smaller than what is required in the context of the current strategy,” Mr White told the Seanad.

He said the leased facility would be used to accommodate primary care staff prior to the permanent move to the new centre at St Mary’s campus, which is due to be completed by 2016.

After this time, the leased building will be used for other health services.

Mr White said he had no information on why the “considerable” delay had occurred.

A spokesperson for the HSE said Cork City Council had recently approved the lease, and that it would be “considered by the HSE property committee within the next four weeks”.

“Arrangements will be made to provide the envisaged HSE services from the premises as soon as possible after the HSE property approval process is completed,” said the spokesperson.

“The services delivered from the facility will complement the services delivered from the planned primary care centre at St Mary’s campus.”

The HSE has been granted a 999-year lease for the facility, on which it will pay an annual rent of €10.