HSE spends €900k on security for empty mental health facility in Cork valued at €630k in 2020

The HSE had not responded at the time of publication to a request for comment as to why Millfield House had never been sold despite having no residents for three years, nor as to how much it pays in security costs.

The HSE has spent just under €900,000 providing private security for a Cork building which was valued at just €630,000 three years ago, it has emerged.

Millfield House in Blackpool, formerly a 24-hour mental health facility, has been the subject of a private security detail since May of 2019. Since that date the security arrangement has cost the HSE €897,843, with the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 proving especially expensive at an average of €273,000 per annum.

The security detail, provided by specialist Dublin firm Bidvest Noonan, arose from “anti-social behaviour and a large fire in the unit across from Millfield House”, the HSE told Green TD Neasa Hourigan, with the fire having required the evacuation of the centre’s residents.

Millfield House has been vacant of live-in patients since April 2020, when residents moved to a rented facility at Garnish House in Cork city in order to match social distancing requirements necessitated by the pandemic.

The HSE has since claimed that the building remained utilised in a “limited way” during the pandemic “for staff office space and to hold day programmes”. Garnish House, meanwhile, has been rented at a cost of more than €43,000 per month since April 2020.

As of last September, some €1.7m had been spent on rent and cleaning costs for the building, with then HSE chief officer for Cork/Kerry Michael Fitzgerald telling the Public Accounts Committee late last year that Garnish House would be vacated by the first quarter of 2023. That vacation has not happened yet.

It emerged at the same time that the HSE’s national estates executive had initially refused to sanction the Garnish rental due to it not representing value for money.

The HSE had first earmarked Millfield House for sale as part of its 2021 capital plan, with a newly purchased building, Glenwood House in Carrigaline, posited as its replacement.

Despite at least €1.25m having been spent on Glenwood House between its January 2021 purchase and subsequent refurbishment, it has yet to open its doors, with a decision on retention planning permission for the building yet to have been delivered by An Bord Pleanala.

HSE estates was first advised two months prior to Glenwood’s purchase in November 2020 that retention planning permission would be needed to convert it from a B&B to a medical facility.

Despite Cork County Council issuing an enforcement notice to the HSE regarding the need for retention, no planning application was made until March of 2022, 14 months later.

The new security figures for Millfield House, meanwhile, show that the HSE has spent 43% more than the building is actually worth on providing security for it in just four years.

The HSE had not responded at the time of publication to a request for comment as to why Millfield House had never been sold despite having no residents for three years, nor as to how much it pays in security costs.

Glenwood House, meanwhile, has also in its time been put forward as a replacement facility for the residents of the Owenacurra mental health centre in Midleton, which has been earmarked for closure since June 2021, due to no longer being fit for purpose in the HSE’s estimation.

Owenacurra remains open nearly two years later, after a concerted local campaign against its closure — however only six of its 20 residents remain in situ.