One of the largest properties in the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) portfolio, which has been deemed surplus to requirements and left empty for years, is to be transferred to a State agency.
The James Weir Home on Cork Street, Dublin, was built in 1903 as accommodation for up to 50 nurses working at the local fever hospital.
The four-storey building is listed and is adjacent to an old Quaker burial ground going back more than 200 years.
However, it has been closed as a nursing home for many decades and while it operated as an overflow centre for psychiatric patients from St Brendan’s Hospital for many years, it was closed in 2021 and has remained unused.
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On Monday, the HSE announced that it has received interest from a “state stakeholder” to acquire the property, but declined to comment on the identity of the state body.
“However, we expect this process to come to a conclusion in the coming weeks,” the HSE said.
The Department of Public Expenditure mandates every state body which has surplus property to offer the property first to other state bodies first.
In October 2022 the HSE was due to transfer the buildings and adjoining burial grounds to the Peter McVerry Trust, but the trust has been in financial difficulty in recent years.
The site is across the road from the Coombe Hospital and within walking distance of the new national children’s hospital.
Local TD Máire Devine, a former nurse, said she wished to see it “restored, rededicated and reused as accommodation for nurses or those hundreds of workers required to staff the national children’s hospital due open soon.
“The paralysis and lack of urgency by State agencies that is leading to further deterioration of this and many of our historical buildings is shameful. State agencies are the custodians of these buildings and need to speed up protective processes on behalf of the public.”
Hopes that Dublin City Council would acquire it for either social housing or as a community facility were dashed last month when the council informed Cllr Ciaran Ó Meachair that the cost of preserving the building and converting it for housing would be too great.
He said the council’s decision not to take it over was a blow to the Dublin 8 community lacking places for people to meet.
The Donore Avenue Youth and Community Centre is being refurbished and will not reopen until the summer of 2027.
“In Dublin 8 we have a huge amount of community groups and artists who are crying out for space. It should stay in public hands,” he said.
“The HSE should find an alternative use for it that it should serve the public of Dublin 8.”
Former Dublin City Council planner Kieran Rose said he inspected the building last year and it was no longer suitable for accommodation.
“It was like an old-style hostel. You had your bed and that is about it. The cost benefit analysis of converting it into housing isn’t there,” he said. “You’d really wreck the building if you divided it up into housing.”
