Government plans to relocate the Central Mental Hospital alongside Mountjoy Prison to a greenfield site off Dublin's M1 have run into opposition from health professionals, patients' relatives and the State's mental health watchdog.
There are also signs of disagreement within Government over whether the redeveloped Central Mental Hospital should be identified with a new prison complex.
The current 34-acre site is potentially one of the most valuable pieces of State-owned property and may be worth in excess of €100 million.
The Minister for Health, Ms Harney, however, has stressed that the hospital is a therapeutic facility and not a prison.
"The Department agrees with families and carers who feel that it would not be desirable that the hospital be perceived as, or closely identified with, a prison complex," Ms Harney said in reply to a parliamentary question last month.
However Ms Harney also said her Department understood the location of the hospital adjacent to a prison would have operational benefits for the prison service.
The Mental Health Commission, the State watchdog for the mental health service, yesterday strongly objected to the hospital being associated with a prison complex.
The commission's chief executive, Ms Bríd Clarke, said: "The Mental Health Commission is very anxious that this development be prioritised. This new development must be designed and constructed as a hospital, clearly separate and apart from any prison complex."
Relatives of patients have also expressed fears that years of campaigning to remove the stigma from mental illness could be reversed if the hospital is placed beside a prison.
"When people are placed in the Central Mental Hospital, it's for support and treatment," said Ms Pat Seager, the assistant director of Schizophrenia Ireland, which has links with a relatives' group at the Central Mental Hospital.
"The link between treatment and prison would give credence to the type of unhelpful headlines and stigma that we have been campaigning against. People want a change from the horrendous conditions in the hospital, but this kind of action wouldn't speak well of the State's commitment to working with vulnerable people."
Health professionals at the hospital have also expressed opposition to the plans, as has the Irish Penal Reform Trust. An expert group, made up of representatives from the Department of Justice, the Irish Prison Service and the Office of Public Works (OPW), is putting together proposals for a replacement site for Mountjoy, which the group will submit to the Department of Justice.
Of the sites under consideration, the OPW is believed to favour a location off the M1 motorway in north Co Dublin, close to Man 'O' War, with the possibility of a new link road being built to it from the motorway.