The new Central Mental Hospital will be given its own board and will have a separate governance structure, the Minister of State for Health, Mr Tim O'Malley, has announced.
He was responding to criticism by professionals and relatives' groups regarding the proposed relocation of the Central Mental Hospital from Dundrum, Dublin, to the Thornton Hall site on the Co Meath border.
"I would like to emphasise that the new Central Mental Hospital will be a health facility, providing a therapeutic forensic psychiatric service to the highest international standards," Mr O'Malley said yesterday.
He told The Irish Times that he would introduce a regulation under the Health Act "providing for a separate governance structure for the Central Mental Hospital, by way of its own board, reflecting its importance as a national, tertiary psychiatric service".
The decision to relocate the Central Mental Hospital to a new purpose-built facility had been taken by a project team which included representatives from the hospital.
"The Central Mental Hospital has been a Cinderella for years," Mr O'Malley said, adding that the Department of Health intended that the balance of funds accruing from the sale of the Dundrum site (after providing for a new hospital) would be invested in community mental health facilities.
Responding to questions in the Dáil, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, said she fully agreed that it was important to remove stigma from the mental health area.
Dr Harry Kennedy, clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital, was pleased that Mr O'Malley had confirmed that the hospital would remain under the aegis of the Department of Health and be managed by the Health Service Executive.
"We now have the opportunity to develop a modern rehabilitative service for mentally-disordered offenders and those like them . . . The recognition of the need to invest in step-down and community facilities is particularly important for this stigmatised group," Dr Kennedy said.
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