Human rights body to inspect planned mental health facility in Cork for UN convention breaches
Serious concerns have been raised around plans to locate a 50-bed long-stay residential mental health unit for people with severe and long-term mental illness on an isolated site, which has no footpath access or services nearby.
Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide said plans for the €64m unit at St Stephen's Hospital at Sarsfield's Court, Glanmire, represent a "complete reversal" of a move towards keeping people in their own communities.
"This makes no sense. The only sense it makes is financial sense for the HSE to centralise a lot of its staffing costs into one area in a site that they own themselves. But it's very much against the interests of the residents who will be there into the future," Mr Quaide told an Oireachtas committee.
"There's no footpath even connecting St Stephen's Hospital to the nearest service station, which is 1.7 kilometres away. The nearest retail centre is three kilometres away in Riverstown, there's no footpath for the first kilometre of that.
"There's no community amenities within walking distance of St Stephen's. There's no plans to develop any and the cohort of service users who would become residents there, many would have mobility issues, most or all would not drive," Mr Quaid, who worked as a senior clinical psychologist, said.
In 2023, Cork County Council wrote to the HSE after councillors unanimously backed a call to oppose the plans to build the unit at St Stephen's Hospital.
Mr Quaide said he had repeatedly raised the issue both as a councillor and now as a TD, but it "feels like an unstoppable process" as he claimed "the agency is intent on pushing ahead with this".
"I feel very strongly about it because I worked in the mental health services in Cork as a psychologist, and I've seen the benefits of the same services in Cork adhering to our national mental health policies over the years, by facilitating the re-integration of long-stay patients of institutional facilities back into their communities."
The Cork East TD put it to Irish Human Rights and Equality chief commissioner Liam Herrick, who was appearing before the disabilities committee, that the development would result in "a blatant breach" of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Mr Quaide:
It will be a far-reaching, permanent breach, because the proposal is for a centralised residential mental health service that will detach people from their community of origin, and in fact, from any setting that vaguely represents community living.
While acknowledging he did not have full details of the case, Mr Herrick said the information outlined by the TD appeared to "engage" with the protections provided for in the UN Convention as well as "other rights and equality standards".
Mr Herrick said: "We have a wide range of statutory functions and powers. I'd be happy to engage with you further, maybe learn more about the instance, and then we can explore if any of our powers or functions may be relevant in the area.
"But on the face of it, I can say that the situation you outline does engage with those issues [contained in the UN Charter], and we'd be happy to consider further."
Mr Quaide said there is no issue with the site as a location for a new elective hospital and acute inpatient mental health admissions, as is also planned, because those admissions are generally short term.
Read More
Mental health services short more than 800 beds, report reveals
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
16 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Colin Sheridan: Obama's silence on Gaza makes Freedom of Dublin award deeply problematic
There's a long and noble Irish tradition of giving medals to people who don't need them. Mimicking our one-time oppressors, we're good at the pomp and pageantry, terrible at timing. And in this grand tradition of ceremonial sycophancy, we've now decided to give the Freedom of Dublin to Barack Obama — the same Barack Obama whose presidential legacy includes a kill list, expanded drone warfare, and now, more recently, a silence on Gaza so deafening it practically registers on the Richter scale. Now, before someone starts waving a Hope poster in my face and singing 'Is Feider Linn', let's be clear: this isn't a character assassination. Barack Obama is, by many accounts, charming, intelligent, a skilled orator, and less overtly monstrous than some who followed him. But if the bar for receiving Dublin's highest civic honour is simply 'better than Trump,' then let's all take turns. This isn't about left or right. It's about right and wrong. And giving Obama the keys to a city that prides itself on solidarity, social justice and neutrality — a city only a century since it's own liberation from colonisers, a city that once shut down its port in protest of apartheid — is a moral absurdity that would be funny if it weren't so grotesque. Let's talk about Gaza. Right now, we're witnessing an unquestionable genocide, one that even conservative estimates rank among the worst atrocities in recent memory. Tens of thousands dead. Children buried under rubble. Journalists and doctors targeted with impunity. And what's Obama's response? A few muted bromides about 'the complexity of the situation' and the usual plea for restraint — the kind of lukewarm platitude you'd expect from someone looking to protect a Netflix deal, not someone once hailed as the conscience of the free world. Remember, this is the same man who, while president, gave Israel the largest military aid package in US history — $38bn over ten years. The same man who watched as Gaza was pummelled in 2014, and then blocked efforts at the UN for accountability. In Obama's world, apparently, some lives matter more than others — and it's not the ones buried under the debris in Khan Younis So let's ask: What, exactly, are we honouring? Is it the weekly 'Terror Tuesday' meetings where he personally signed off on drone strikes — many of which killed civilians, including children, with such frequency that his administration had to redefine the word 'combatant' to keep the numbers palatable? Is it the Nobel Peace Prize he received before bombing seven countries? Or is it the charming eloquence with which he explained away extrajudicial assassinations and mass surveillance? Maybe it's the warm pint he had in Moneygall. Maybe that's enough. Maybe our foreign policy is so thin it can be blown over by a puff of Guinness foam. Obama's defenders, and there are many, will say: "He tried." They'll point to the Iran deal. They'll mention the thaw with Cuba. And fair enough — no presidency is black and white (though drone strikes absolutely are). But a Freedom of the City is not a footnote in a CV. It's a declaration of values. And at a time when Dublin has become a symbol — however small — of international moral conscience on Gaza, this award feels not just tone-deaf, but actively insulting It's worth asking how we'd feel if another country handed such an honour to, say, Tony Blair, citing his contribution to the peace process while politely ignoring Iraq. We'd scoff. We'd march. We'd write strongly-worded op-eds, the kind I'm doing now. And yet, because Obama quotes Seamus Heaney and has a smile that makes white liberals feel good about themselves, we're expected to ignore the trail of bodies left in his geopolitical wake. It's also galling because the Freedom of Dublin isn't just symbolic fluff — at least, it wasn't meant to be. It should be given to people like Nelson Mandela and John Hume — people whose lives were defined by their resistance to violence, not their management of it. To toss Obama into that company is like inviting Monsanto to an organic farming festival. Let's not pretend this is just a harmless bit of civic theatre. In a world as interconnected and morally muddled as ours, gestures matter. They signal what we stand for And giving Obama this award now — as children in Gaza die in silence, too exhausted to even scream — sends a very clear message: that brand is more important than behaviour, that the image of progress is more valuable than the practice of it. And to those in Dublin City Council who greenlit this award: shame on you. Not because Obama is uniquely evil — he's not — but because you should know better. You should know that real solidarity isn't measured in photo ops, but in principles. You should know that timing matters. Context matters. And right now, there's blood on the sand in Gaza, and silence in the White House archives. We don't need empty ceremonies. We need moral courage. And giving the Freedom of Dublin to Barack Obama is not an act of courage. It's an act of cowardice wrapped in a velvet sash.
Irish Examiner
a day ago
- Irish Examiner
US special envoy Witkoff visits food distribution centre in Gaza
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy has visited a food distribution site in the Gaza Strip operated by an Israeli-backed American contractor whose efforts to deliver food to the hunger-stricken territory have been marred by violence and controversy. International experts warned this week that a 'worst-case scenario of famine' is playing out in Gaza. Israel's near 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2.0 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to safely deliver food to starving people. Envoy Steve Witkoff and the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, which has been almost completely destroyed and is now a largely depopulated Israeli military zone. Steve Witkoff, centre, and Mike Huckabee, centre left, visiting a food distribution site in Gaza City (David Azaguri/US Embassy Jerusalem via AP) Hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli fire while heading to such aid sites since May, according to witnesses, health officials and the UN human rights office. Israel and GHF say they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated. In a report issued on Friday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said GHF was at the heart of a 'flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.' Mr Witkoff posted on X that he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza in order to gain 'a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza'. Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP) Chapin Fay, a spokesperson for GHF, said the visit reflected Mr Trump's understanding of the stakes and that 'feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority'. The group said it has delivered over 100 million meals since it began operations in May. All four of the group's sites established in May are in zones controlled by the Israeli military and have become flashpoints of desperation, with starving people scrambling for scarce aid. More 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli fire since May while seeking aid in the territory, most near the GHF sites but also near United Nations aid convoys, the UN human rights office said last month. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Officials at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said on Friday they received the bodies of 13 people who were killed while trying to get aid, including near the site that US officials visited. GHF denied anyone was killed at their sites on Friday and said most recent shootings had occurred near UN aid convoys. Mr Witkoff's visit comes a week after US officials walked away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas and pledging to seek other ways to rescue Israeli hostages and make Gaza safe. Mr Trump wrote on social media that the fastest way to end the crisis would be for Hamas to surrender and release hostages. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7 2023 and abducted 251 others. They still hold 50 hostages, including about 20 believed to be alive. Most of the others have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
The Journal
a day ago
- The Journal
Tánaiste to meet Seán Rooney's mother after she said he shouldn't 'seek to speak for me'
TÁNAISTE AND MINISTER for Defence Simon Harris has said he will meet with the mother of slain soldier Private Seán Rooney next week and that he has 'total respect' for him and his family. Harris was asked for his reaction to comments Private Rooney's mother Natasha made yesterday, in which she said the Tánaiste should 'speak to me, before seeking to speak for me, in his public statements'. Private Rooney was killed while serving as part of a UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon in 2022. The shooting, near the town of Al-Aqbiya in the south of the country, a stronghold of militant group Hezbollah, resulted in the death of Private Rooney while Trooper Shane Kearney was badly wounded. Earlier this week, a Military Tribunal in Beirut convicted one main defendant, Mohammad Ayyad, of the murder of Private Rooney and sentenced him to death. Advertisement However, Ayyad, a member of Hezbollah, was absent from proceedings and he remains at large. Natasha Rooney was scathing in her criticism of the Lebanese justice system and the light sentences given to Ayyad's accomplices. 'I'll be meeting Natasha next week,' Harris told reporters today. 'Natasha is a grieving mother fighting for justice for her son, who died while serving with absolute distinction wearing the uniform of Óglaigh na hÉireann. 'He has my absolute and total respect, as does his family, and I'll reserve any further comments until I engage Natasha directly. 'I know my officials did attend the military tribunal in Beirut last week, but I look forward to meeting Natasha and engaging with her directly next week.' Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
