HSE head set to tell Oireachtas committee east Cork mental health centre is 'not fit for purpose'

The Owenacurra Centre in Midleton.

The head of the HSE is set to tell an Oireachtas committee on Thursday that the Owenacurra community mental health centre in east Cork is “regrettably no longer fit for purpose”.

Paul Reid will tell the Public Accounts Committee that it is “not viable” to bring the centre in Midleton, which was slated for closure last October amid a local outcry, “to bring it to a standard that will meet the needs of our service users and our staff.”

Mr Reid’s stance is directly at odds with members of the Oireachtas Health Committee which visited Owenacurra earlier this week, with Green Party health spokesperson Neasa Hourigan, who is also an architect, declaring the centre to be a “valuable site” which should not be abandoned.

Nevertheless, the HSE chief is set to tell the PAC that the process of finding “more appropriate accommodation” will be handled “with sensitivity and with regard to the wishes and preferences of each individual resident.”

The closure of Owenacurra is set to leave a catchment population of 94,000 people in the east of the county without a dedicated 24-hour mental health facility, with nine of the remaining residents having been offered places in a new facility in Carrigaline, some 30 kilometres away.

That centre was purchased by the HSE for €750,000 in January 2021 but will not be fully operational before June of this year.

Mr Reid’s appearance will see him face questioning regarding the recent Maskey Report, which outlined serious failings in the provision of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the Cork/Kerry region.

That report, which found that 46 children had suffered significant harm over a period of five years, said that those failings were “a profoundly serious issue”, adding that they demand “a fundamental review” across the country.

In his opening statement to the PAC, Mr Reid is expected to bemoan the “significant issue” of there being a lack of skilled staff available to the HSE’s mental health services, due to staff, younger staff in particular, “availing of employment opportunities outside of Ireland.”

He will say, however, that an increase in funding in recent years has led to progress in shifting the focus of mental health services “from institutional to community care, and to improve the overall quality of services.”

He will state that the capacity of CAHMS has been “generally enhanced” due to those budget increases since 2012.

The HSE’s current mental health budget for 2022 is €1.16 billion, up from €707 million in 2012.

Mr Reid is expected to tell the committee that an additional €24 million has been made available to “enhance and build new mental health services in 2022.”

“This will allow the HSE to continue our implementation of the national clinical programmes, build out-of-hours services, crisis response teams and crisis cafés, and bring forward a recovery approach into all services,” he will say.