THE GOVERNMENT has no intention of abandoning its plans to relocate the Central Mental Hospital to the site of a new prison complex in north Co Dublin, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said yesterday.
Mr Ahern said a replacement was badly needed for the 150-year-old hospital and insisted the new building would be separate and distinct from the prison.
"As far as I'm concerned it's full steam ahead. Nothing has been said to me which would indicate otherwise," he said.
He rejected suggestions that the new facility would stigmatise patients. "The Government made a decision to set aside 20 acres of the Thornton Hall prison site for this on the basis that if a new facility for mental health was in place, it would be completely separate and distinct. It would have separate entrances, be run separately and operated by the Health Service Executive (HSE)," he said.
"I can't see us changing our mind about it. Obviously people will have an opportunity during the planning process to say whether it should be there or not."
Relatives of patients at the Central Mental Hospital and mental health campaigners have stepped up their campaign to have the facility redeveloped on its existing site in Dundrum.
In a report published yesterday entitled Patients Not Prisoners, the group pointed to research by Dr Paul Mullen, clinical director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health in Australia, who says co-location of the hospital with a prison is not in accordance with best therapeutic practice.
The carers' group spokesman said: "Many patients have not committed a crime, and all patients have a right to be free from stigma and discrimination. Placing them in a facility beside a prison can only lead to greater stigmatisation."
The report also includes analysis by Jim Power, chief economist of Friends First, who says the existing site could be redeveloped at no cost to the exchequer by selling off a parcel of land.
He said selling 14 acres of the 34-acre site in Dundrum could raise up to €140 million, enough to build a new facility, which would cost in the region of €100 million.
The report was prepared jointly by the Central Mental Hospital Carers' Group, the Irish Mental Health Coalition and Schizophrenia Ireland.
The HSE is producing its own cost-benefit analysis of the move, to be finalised shortly.
Mr Ahern said the plan to build a new facility was evidence of the Government's commitment to investing in mental health. "We are providing a new facility to replace what is . . . a very old facility," he said. "The Government is doing its duty in trying to invest more in mental health which has been to a certain extent the Cinderella of the health service."