A private nursing home in Kilkenny is to close with the loss of 41 jobs, forcing 37 elderly residents to find an alternative place to live.
Staff and residents were notified late in January. Letters were sent to residents' families informing them of the decision.
A number of factors have led the owners to close St Joseph's Nursing Home in Thomastown, 10 miles from Kilkenny city.
Proprietor Seán Bay said the most recent inspector's report from the Health Service Executive (HSE) called for totally impractical alterations to the 110-year-old building.
Before the nursing home opened 15 years ago it took two years to convert the building from its former state as a convent. Mr Bay said: "It's not so much what [ the alterations] would cost today. With an old building you can't just draw a line in the sand and say 'We're alright now'."
But he questioned the validity of the report's stipulations, one that called for a laundry inside the main building to replace the outside laundry used since the home opened and for elbow taps on all the taps in the building.
"As far as we know no other nursing home has been asked to do that," Mr Bay said. The required changes could have been made to St Joseph's but that would not have solved the matter, he added.
The HSE said that towards the end of 2005, St Joseph's contacted the HSE to give notice that the home was closing. A statement said: "The HSE provided a senior nurse manager to work with the nursing home to ensure that all residents would be accommodated in other nursing home services and to make the transition as painless as possible for the residents and their families."
Suitable accommodation is being sought for the remainder of residents before the March 10th closure.