My Department has issued approximately 75 individual letters of approval for capital projects to the North Eastern Health Board for the years 1998 to 2004 inclusive. These relate to all health care programmes and range from individual project investment to minor capital works approved on a regional funding basis for the board. While it would not be realistic for my Department to extract the proportions of total investment over the period in question made available for individual counties within the board, a significant proportion of this was in respect of counties Cavan and Monaghan. Details of such overall investment would be available from the board.
The larger projects approved in recent times included new theatre facilities and ward upgrades at Monaghan General Hospital, significant re-equipping undertaken at Cavan General Hospital and new community nursing units provided at Virginia and Ballyconnell. Also, in 2000 for example, my Department approved under the national development plan a minor capital grant of just over €10 million for a special re-equipping and refurbishment initiative in both the acute and non-acute sectors in the board. A similar minor capital provision of €4 million in 2003 related to more than 100 individual items of works across the region and a further €5 million for minor capital developments was approved for the current year.
The position with the new facility for older persons in Cootehill is that the North Eastern Health Board is in continuing discussions with the local voluntary group concerned about operating the new unit. The board hopes to satisfactorily conclude these discussions as soon as possible.
