No renovations at Blackpool mental health facility described as unfit for purpose in 2021
Glenwood House in Carrigaline was purchased by the HSE in January 2021 for €750,000, since then €500,000 worth of refurbishment works were carried out yet it remains vacant. Picture: Larry Cummins
The HSE has performed no room renovations at a soon-to-be reoccupied mental health facility despite previously declaring the multi-occupancy building to be “unfit for purpose”.
Fifteen residents from the HSE-owned Millfield House in Blackpool moved to the privately-rented Garnish House in Cork city in or around April 2020 due to concerns over Covid-19 and social distancing.
Millfield House is a multiple-occupancy centre, its rooms being shared by two or more people.
The same facility was declared unfit for purpose in the HSE’s 2021 capital plan, with the prospective purchase of former B&B Glenwood House in Carrigaline touted as a replacement for Millfield, despite the two being situated in different districts — Glenwood falls under South Lee Mental Health Services, as opposed to North Lee where Millfield is located.
The last week reported that the HSE nevertheless informed the caretakers of Millfield House in late March that it is “committed” to returning its residents to their former accommodation.
However, the HSE has now confirmed that the centre remains physically unchanged from the facility which was deemed not fit for purpose two years ago.
“No building improvement works have taken place at Millfield House since its residents moved,” a spokesperson for the HSE said.
This contrasts with Glenwood House, which was eventually purchased by the HSE — from a family member of the head of Cork/Kerry mental health services — in January 2021 for €750,000, and which has since seen €500,000 worth of refurbishment works carried out.
Glenwood remains vacant today some 16 months after it was purchased. An application for retention planning permission was made last month in order to redesignate the building as a mental health facility, something the HSE was advised would be necessary as far back as November of 2020.
“Glenwood house is the subject of a planning process and as such no placements have been offered at this facility,” the HSE spokesperson said.
Regarding the return of patients to Millfield House, the HSE acknowledged when expressing its commitment to that return that the fact its rooms are multi-occupancy could be an issue, as the residents have been accommodated for the last two years in single-occupancy accommodation at Garnish House.
The expense of renting that property — which has cost €1.1m, more than €45,000 per month in the past 24 months — was cited as one of the key urgencies regarding the Glenwood House purchase in late 2020.
“As the property had previously been a multi-occupancy unit we will need to review the occupancy plan and will engage with ... the Millfield House residents as key stakeholders to plan the return to Blackpool over the next period,” an area administrator for Cork mental health services said on March 22.
However, the HSE has now said that “all options relating to the future of Millfield House including its potential sale continue to be considered by the HSE”.
Millfield House was valued at €633,000 in July of 2020.
The €2.3m spent on Glenwood and Garnish over the past two years contrasts with a €145,000 tender for the refurbishment of the State-owned Owenacurra mental health residential facility in Midleton in 2020, which was never actioned.
Owenacurra has been marked for closure since late last year, over angry protests from its residents’ families, due to the HSE also deeming it “not fit for purpose”.
More money has been spent renovating the vacant Glenwood House in just one year than was spent on works at Owenacurra over the past decade, according to new figures released to Green councillor for east Cork Liam Quaide.
"It is perplexing to consider how so much money flowed towards a property in Carrigaline without planning permission while necessary building works on long-established services in Blackpool and Midleton were not progressed," Mr Quaide said.
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