Seanad report: Conditions were likely to be attached to the sale of lands around large psychiatric institutions requiring that those receiving care in them be provided with proper housing locally, Minister of State for Health Tim O'Malley indicated.
Having visited a lot of these places around the country he was very unhappy that while there was a large land asset surrounding some of them, at the same time people with mental health problems were living in appalling deprivation.
The Government was committed to transferring these land assets to mental health assets through the sale of these institutions. This would be done on a phased basis and there would be no question of dumping people into the community. They would be looked after properly before any institution was closed,
Responding to a debate on the report of the expert group on mental health policy, Mr O'Malley said he was not necessarily looking at selling these lands to the highest bidder. He believed that the question of attaching conditions to their sale should be looked at.
If 100 or 200 people had to be housed out of a large institution "it should not be beyond our competence to devise an appropriate arrangement, so that if an asset was being sold off, conditions required that those affected would be housed properly in the area concerned".
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Joe O'Toole (Ind) complained that the media were spreading "sensational" scare stories about the likelihood of a bird flu pandemic. Following alarmist noises made about Sars last year the impression was being given that with the discovery of an infected bird in Greece, it was only a matter of time before Europe experienced a flu pandemic or widespread difficulties.
A story had now surfaced about the arrival of bird flu in Africa, added Mr O'Toole, who said it would be very helpful if the Minister for Health or some of her officials were to explain to the world at large that the chances of a flu pandemic were somewhere close to a snowball's chances of surviving in hell.