Sir, – Mulranny Day Centre Housing CLG runs St Brendan’s Community Village Project in Mayo providing a continuum of support, beginning with people living in their own home, through to sheltered housing and to high support care. The St Brendan’s guarantee is that no matter how old or disabled you are, there is always a place for you to stay locally and be looked after near to where you always lived. Besides doing something which is worthwhile and which we should do anyway for the most vulnerable citizens of our community, we are also the biggest local employer in this remote corner of rural Ireland. We have been like this for the last 25 years. Our weekly wage bill is more than ¤23,000 (¤1.25 million annually).
We are a “not for profit” registered charity, classed as part of the voluntary sector, which receives 4 per cent of the total “Fair Deal” funding for looking after those older and disabled people who require long term nursing home care.
Our long-term viability is threatened by the exact same circumstances which has already forced the closure of 34 smaller private nursing homes since 2020 (only four of those were located in the Pale despite holding a sizeable part of the population of Ireland) and with more closures to come predicted to end with 1,200 older vulnerable people already put out on the road desperately seeking a new home.
The nearest HSE facility to us is nine miles away and has an equally vulnerable resident population (exact same admission criterion and regulations in force) but receives 60 per cent more support per resident from the National Treatment Purchase Fund and State per week than we do. I am aware that a complaint has been accepted for consideration by the EU to be heard against the Government about this inequity.
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Rather than wallow in our present despair, we are hitting the highways and byways as part of our campaign on behalf of our residents. Our St Brendan’s Village project stopped the “sad silent migration of older people to faraway institutions” and facilitated the return of many of our older people back to their own area from the large HSE care homes located in Castlebar and elsewhere 25 years ago.
The “sad silent migration of older people to faraway institutions” is happening once again with the move to warehousing of our older person’s care in huge urban privately run nursing homes, rather than in the huge ward-filled HSE county homes of yesteryear.
While 34 smaller nursing homes have closed (no HSE facility was caused to close) the number of private nursing homes of over 100 beds has doubled in recent times. This trend is set to continue.
Were the Government to treat us equitably our residents and ourselves would not now have this uncertain future. Will we be yet another place to close in time and our vulnerable residents lose their home?
Will rural Ireland lose yet another valuable service and valuable local employment also, stoking further the vicious circle of continuing rural depopulation?
If we are to survive, our Government must act now to give us equality with the HSE. – Yours, etc,
Dr JERRY COWLEY,
Chair,
Mulranny Day Centre
Housing CLG,
Mulranny,
Co Mayo.