Health authorities have identified more than 200 acres of land from 15 mental hospitals whose sale is expected to raise hundreds of millions of euro for the health service, write Carl O'Brien & Martin Wall.
Developers seeking to buy lands occupied by some of the largest psychiatric hospitals in the State will be obliged to include community-based facilities for mentally ill patients in new housing developments, it has emerged.
The first of the hospitals expected to be sold is the 70-acre St Ita's Hospital in Portrane, Co Dublin, which senior health officials believe could be worth in the region of €800 million. This would make it one of the most lucrative State assets to be put on the market by the Government.
New tendering rules to be an- nounced in the coming months will oblige successful bidders to build facilities such as sheltered housing or community care centres for around 1,000 psychiatric patients who are due to be relocated from older mental institutions.
The Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Tim O'Malley, said the new tendering arrangements would apply to some of the larger psychiatric hospitals.
"This is not just a question of selling land to the highest bidder. Obviously I want the best price for the mental health service, but our overriding priority is to get the best accommodation and services possible for psychiatric patients," he said.
The first steps in the process of selling or redeveloping lands occupied by 15 psychiatric hospitals is due to begin in the coming months. The entire process is expected to take between seven and 10 years.
Government sources say that among the first hospitals likely to be put up for sale will be St Ita's, St Finian's psychiatric hospital, Killarney, and St Senan's in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford.
While sites such as St Ita's have been informally valued as being worth hundreds of millions, the State is likely to receive less given the obligations developers would face under the new tendering arrangements.
The construction of community-based facilities for psychiatric patients has sparked controversy and opposition from a number of residents' groups around the country. However, placing such units in new developments would help to avoid protests and ensure new accommodation would be speedily constructed.
Not all lands will be developed in this way, however. Health Service Executive officials say some lands will be redeveloped or sold on the open market, depending on the needs of patients and the wider community.
"Each hospital is different and we'll approach the sale of each hospital differently. It is a complex process," a senior health official said.
An increasing emphasis on care in the community over the last two decades has seen the numbers in institutional settings decline from 12,900 in 1984 to around 3,500 last year.
Officials estimate that fewer than 1,000 patients will need to be accommodated on a long-term basis in the community.
Mr O'Malley said all funds generated by the sale of assets in the sector would be used for health purposes.
He also said that there would not be redundancies arising from the closure of older psychiatric hospitals. Instead, existing staff would be redeployed to community-care settings within health authority areas.
The sale of lands would help raise funds to implement the Government's recent blueprint for the future of mental health services.
This estimated that development of community-based units to replace the existing psychiatric hospitals would cost almost €800 million in capital funding.
It also says €21.6 million in non-capital funding will need to be invested each year for the next seven years on staff and an extra €151 million a year will need to be put into mental health in general.