Doubling of budget for controversial mental health facility is 'value for money'

 Glenwood House in Carrigaline, Co. Cork.

The HSE has said that the doubling of a refurbishment budget for a former B&B in Carrigaline represents “significant value for money”, and denied that a €250,000 cap on those works had been breached.

The executive bought Glenwood House in the town for €750,000 in January 2021 in an expeditious fashion with a view to removing its dependency on the rental of Garnish House in Cork city as a long-term residential centre for mental health patients.

It has since spent just short of €500,000 refurbishing the building despite the HSE initially stating that the approved capital budget for those works was just €250,000.

An Bord Pleanála decision

Glenwood House has yet to open as a mental health facility, some 22 months after its initial purchase. A decision on retention permission for its change of use to a medical facility is set to be delivered by An Bord Pleanála next month, after local residents objected to Cork County Council’s decision to grant the initial application earlier this year.

“The investment in Glenwood House represents significant value for money and will allow us to provide a high quality service in a 10-bed community residential setting,” a HSE spokesperson said.

“The cost expended at Glenwood House represents significant value for money when compared to the cost of providing similar HSE residential accommodation. It is also an opportunity to address significant shortcomings in the stock of residential services in Cork.”

Budget cap

 In March 2021 the HSE’s national director of estates Jim Curran said that the total capital allocation for Glenwood was €250,000 and that “expenditure in 2021 must be kept within this limit”.

However, the HSE spokesperson said that any suggestion a cap had been breached is “incorrect”.

“The budget for the project increased because the scope of works increased,” they said.

The seeming determination to open Glenwood — purchased from the family of the acting head of Cork/Kerry mental health services — as a mental health facility has been contrasted with the HSE’s unwavering commitment to close the Owenacurra centre in Midleton, despite the staunch opposition of its residents and their families.

It has now emerged that electrical works at Glenwood totalled €115,000 of the total €486,000 spent on that building.

By contrast, the HSE has repeatedly asserted that the inadequacy of “essential systems” such as electrics at Owenacurra had been one of the overriding reasons behind its decision to close that centre.

Asked about that perceived contradiction, the spokesperson for the HSE said that “direct comparison” between Owenacurra and Glenwood “is incorrect”.

“The many issues at the Owenacurra Centre go beyond ‘failing electrics’,” they said. “The current Owenacurra Centre is an inappropriate setting that will close, and no level of investment in refurbishment could deliver the quality of accommodation required within a realistic budget.”

 Last month the Oireachtas Health Committee wrote to the HSE’s board calling for it to commission an independent investigation into the acquisition of Glenwood.

“We reiterate our request that the HSE Board independently investigate the service decisions and investment patterns associated with Garnish House and Glenwood House, which coincided with a decision by CHO4 mental health management to remove all funding for 24-hour mental health placements from East Cork,” the committee’s chair Sean Crowe wrote.