HSE ignored advice that planning was needed to convert Cork B&B into mental health facility
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The HSE ignored expert advice that planning permission would be required to convert a €1.25m B&B into a mental health facility, with the property still lying vacant 14 months later as a result.
In November 2020 following the purchase of Glenwood House B&B in Carrigaline, Co Cork, the HSE’s property management was advised by an architect that "you will need planning permission” to convert the property.
A week later a HSE estates manager told the legal advisers on the sale “the purchase of the property was not subject to planning and so the HSE are satisfied to proceed on the basis of the existing documentation”.
Six months later, in May 2021, Cork County Council served the HSE with a warning regarding the “unauthorised development” taking place at Glenwood, documents released under freedom of information show.
Such an infraction is punishable by a daily fine of €12,697 up to a maximum penalty of €12.7m, or a prison term of up to two years.
Nearly three months later, the HSE had still yet to respond to the warning, something Cork County Council described as “unsatisfactory”.
The HSE had expressed its desire to open Glenwood as a community mental health centre as soon as possible in 2021.
As the planning issue remains outstanding, the new facility is now not expected to open before the end of the second quarter of this year, nearly 18 months after its initial purchase.
The HSE has spent €1.1m on the rental and cleaning of Garnish House in Cork City since April 2020.
It is planned to move the residents of Garnish to Glenwood House when that property becomes operational.
In January 2021, a HSE estate manager for Cork/Kerry acknowledged that no further funding existed to rent Garnish beyond the end of the following month.
“Completion of works and occupation of Glenwood will need to take place in advance of the end of February,” he wrote.
The HSE had not replied to a series of queries from the on this matter at the time of publication.
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 is currently slated for closure, something strenuously objected to by its residents and their families, while nine of its residents have been offered placements in Carrigaline once it becomes operational.
Local Green councillor Liam Quaide, a prominent Owenacurra campaigner, described as "really striking" the lack of awareness on the part of the HSE "of the impact that prolonged uncertainty about relocation would have on the residents" of the Midleton facility.
"These are people who are often highly sensitive to change, and who can be prone to destabilisation when facing major transitions," he said.
He added that "the failure to heed warnings about planning approval has led to mounting rental costs in Garnish House and prolonged uncertainty for service-users".
Meanwhile, some €300,000 more than was originally budgeted for has been spent to date on the refurbishment of Glenwood House ahead of its conversion into a mental health facility.
When the purchase of the building was first suggested by HSE management in October 2020, the projected fit out costs were between €200,000 and €250,000.
By March 2021, the HSE’s national director of estates Jim Curran had confirmed that the “total capital allocation for this project in 2021 is €0.25m and expenditure in 2021 must be kept within this limit”.
In April of that year, the HSE wrote to Minister for Public Expenditure, and local Cork TD, Michael McGrath to state that only “limited minor works” would be undertaken at the property.
However, at the HSE’s appearance before the Public Accounts Committee earlier this month Mr Curran confirmed that the money spent on the refurbishment of Glenwood to date is now “approximately €500,000”.