asked the Minister for Health when it is intended to provide the necessary funds to provide staff for Cheeverstown House, Templeogue, Dublin, and the remaining bungalow at St. Michael's House, so that these desperately needed residential facilities for the mentally handicapped can open and cater for at least some of the very many severely mentally handicapped persons on priority waiting lists for residential care for whom no residential facilities are available.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Residential Facilities for Mentally Handicapped.
8.
I am very conscious of the need to commission additional services for mentally handicapped people. I would hope to be in a position early next year to provide funds to enable Cheeverstown House, Templeogue, to open on a phased basis.
As the Deputy is probably aware, I approved of the recruitment of 30 additional staff to enable the new centre at St. Michael's House, Ballymun, to become operational last December. This was done despite the general embargo which is in force on staff recruitment to the health services. I am aware of the needs of St. Michael's House for further staff. I will examine their situation as sympathetically as possible in the light of whatever additional funds are made available to me for staffing the mental handicap services.
Does the Minister hope to have Cheeverstown House fully operational? Will he accept that many handicapped would be obliged to go into residential care in psychiatric hospitals if the facilities are not made available there?
I intend to commence the phasing in of the centre's various sections on 1 May 1984.
As the building in Cheeverstown has long been completed and the facility is available, would the Minister regard it very much as a priority area for funding even in the difficult financial circumstances in which the Department find themselves? Will he consider ensuring that full staffing is available within Cheeverstown House during the course of 1984 so that it can become freely operational?
The centre is a very major centre of 130 residential places and 154 day-care places. It is an £8 million project. It is now completed, ready to be commissioned. My Department have been in constant touch with the authorities of Cheeverstown House, particularly in relation to the initial staffing. I can assure the Deputy the commissioning costs are very substantial. Within the limits of the 1984 Estimates, I intend that around the beginning of May a substantial segment of phase 1 will be opened.