asked the Minister for Health if he will confirm that the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology will receive a payment of £273,000 when it vacates the buildings it now occupies on a site held at a nominal rent in the grounds of St. James Hospital, Dublin; if it is intended to provide another site in the hospital grounds for the institute rent free or at a nominal rent; if he considers it appropriate that a firm such as ICP should receive State funding in this way; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Institute of Clinical Pharmacology.
20.
The present site occupied by the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology is required by St. James Hospital to enable the development of that hospital to take place. Under the terms of an agreement drawn up in September 1980 between the Eastern Health Board the owners of the site, and the Biological and Medical Research Institute Limited, provision was made that, on surrender of this site:
(a) BMRI would receive a lease to a site of approximately one acre elsewhere in the St. James site at a nominal rent;
(b) That the health board would pay to BMRI £175,000, adjusted in accordance with the price index of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Ireland for the existing buildings.
The interests of the BMRI as contained in the agreement have been assigned to the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology.
I have serious reservations about this agreement and on the siting of a commercial organisation such as the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology on a general hospital campus and have sought legal advice in the matter.