€41.5m spent on barely-used Covid self-isolation facilities and field hospitals

18/12/2021 Covid-19 Pandemic (Coronavirus), Ireland. Day 633 since the start of lockdown. Members of the public queue in the morning frost for booster jabs at the Vaccination Center in Citywest Hotel, Dublin this morning. The center was catering for 50 to 69 year olds, Health workers over 30yrs and walk-ins in an attempt to slow the spread of the Omicron Virus. Photo: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Serious questions have been raised around a €41.5m spend on Covid self-isolation facilities and field hospitals that went largely unused.

Dublin's Citywest hotel, one of a number of hotels used by the HSE, had capacity to accommodate 1,138 people at any one time, yet throughout the pandemic there were never more than 300 people staying there.

Figures released by the HSE reveal that the Citywest facility has been used by 4,000 patients since it opened at a cost of €35.6m.

In addition to the national self-isolation facility and emergency hospital beds, Citywest was also used as a location for Covid testing, as a vaccination centre and as an outpatients facility, with only the vaccination centre remaining in place.

Meanwhile, €333,420 was spent on preparing a field hospital at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), which was never used, and the HSE will have to pay further "re-instatement costs", such as repainting and other works, which have yet to be confirmed.

Paul de Freine, HSE interim national director of capital and estates, said the Bailey Allen Hall was made available in March 2020, but in the end the hospital system in Galway was "capable of managing the Covid-19 admissions".

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"The requirement for additional emergency hospitals beds in Galway was reduced and the Intermediate Care Facility (ICF) at NUIG was stepped down," he said.

In Limerick, a 68-bed facility with capacity to scale to 84 beds was set up at the UL Arena.

However, the maximum bed capacity reached in its time of operation was 32 beds. During the almost five months that the Limerick facility was in operation, a total of 188 patients received care in the facility.

'Waste of resources'

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín described the spending as a "shocking waste of public money" and accused the Government of "losing the run of themselves" when it comes to spending public funds.

"We already know that the HSE purchased ventilators from China that didn't work, along with hand sanitiser that was deemed unsuitable at a cost of millions to the taxpayer. In addition we know that they entered contracts with private hospitals to the tune of a billion euro.

"What we see now in these figures is that €35.5m was spent on contracts with the Citywest Hotel and Convention Centre, and that throughout the length of those contracts there was, on average, only an 8% occupancy rate for the 1,138 beds available.

"This means that 92% of the funds, or €32.6m was spent on beds which were never used," Mr Tóibín said.