READ IN FULL: Tipperary TD slams 'unacceptable' uncertainty surrounding local nursing home

A €24 million state-of-the-art community nursing unit in Nenagh, County Tipperary, remains unused for its intended purpose more than a year after completion, sparking frustration among local representatives and residents.

The facility, initially planned as a modern home for older patients, has instead been temporarily repurposed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to ease overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick.

Deputy Alan Kelly, a Tipperary TD, pressed the Government in the Dáil last week over the unit’s prolonged inactivity, lamenting what he described as a failure to prepare staff despite a year-long lead time.

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“This issue is very personal for me,” Deputy Kelly stressed in his opening remarks.

“I have said here before that I fought for this. St. Conlon’s Nursing Home was very personal for me. Many members of my family had their last days there. It provided an incredible service and the staff were amazing. However, HIQA wanted to close it because it was not meeting requirements.

“We had to fight to get funding and a site. I had to work with the HSE, in particular Joe Hoare. We found the site. I got the funding when I was a Minister. Construction started in May 2021, €24 million was spent and it was ready in early 2024. All that is positive.

“This is where the problems start. I have visited the site. Nobody was being transferred. We were waiting for 18 or 19 people to be transferred from St. Conlon's to a 50-bed state-of-the-art facility. A total of €24 million of taxpayers has been spent and it is lying idle. As the Minister of State is aware, the HSE took it over. It is a step-down facility. I, along with Councillors Louise Morgan Walsh and Fiona Bonfield and Independent Councillor Seamus Morris, marched with thousands of people through the streets of Nenagh protesting about the fact that so many elderly people could not get access to that home.

“Some of these who protested have now passed. Those who were there have lost out on using this facility despite paying their taxes all their years. There are now quite a number of people in locations around north Tipperary, particularly next door in the actual hospital, who are high dependency, people who need three attendants to lift them out of a bed, have been there for months and need to get into this nursing home.

“Following on from what the Minister of State said to me last March and in light of the fact that Bartra has left the actual facility it was running with the HSE for UHL, when will this open? I do not want to know when the 18 residents in St. Conlon’s will come across. I want to know that only as a component of this answer because the regional executive officer told me and others that this would come back in a year.

“I was also assured at a meeting attended by his colleagues and about which the Minister of State would have been informed when we have our regional meetings in Catherine Street in Limerick that they had the whole year to get the resources in place to make sure staffing was available, so I do not want to hear anything about staffing not being available. They had a whole bloody year to get the people. There are queues of people on panels to fill this nursing home. Bartra, which was wrongly put in there to run a step-down facility, has now finished.

“This building is empty. HIQA takes weeks. It would probably take minutes to sign off on this as a nursing home again because it is state-of-the-art. It is incredible. We are very proud of it.

“I need to know when the 50 beds so many families and so many people need opened will open. We have suffered so much in Nenagh and north Tipperary when it comes to health services. When will this state-of-the-art nursing home, which should have been opened 18 months ago, be fully opened and fully staffed, given the commitments by the HSE and by the Minister of State here previously in March that it would happen in the third quarter of this year? It is now September. I want to know not just when the 18 residents of St. Conlon’s will transfer and the staff will transfer but also when it will fully open, and I do not want to hear any issues about staffing or HIQA or anything else.”

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Deputy Kieran O’Donnell, Minister of State at the Department of Health and at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, thanked Deputy Kelly for his remarks, and agreed that the new Nenagh community nursing unit will provide a high-quality living environment which will be in line with all regulatory requirements.

In response to Deputy Kelly’s concerns, Deputy O’Donnell cited a HIQA application as the primary reason for the delay in opening the facility.

“The HSE has vacant possession now of the new nursing home,” he clarified.

“It has applied to HIQA for registration as a designated facility for older people. HIQA is currently assessing the application. It would be expected that will be processed quickly. As part of the process, which I want to work with, the first element is that the residents who are currently in St. Conlon’s will be moved to the new nursing home. They will be facilitated in this regard once HIQA has done the inspection and obviously issued the licence to operate as a nursing home. These people will then be able to pick the rooms they wish to pick. They will have first choice from what is there, which is only appropriate. The staff who are currently in St. Conlon’s will move over with the residents to the new nursing home. I am advised by the HSE that it has the requisite staff and will have the requisite staff to scale up to the full complement of 50 residents in the nursing home.

“The process at the moment is the HSE has taken vacant possession of the new nursing home, it has applied to HIQA in the past week for a licence and HIQA is currently assessing the application. Once HIQA grants the application, I hope that will be relatively soon but obviously the Deputy will appreciate it is independent in the way it assesses applications, then the residents currently in St. Conlon’swill move to the nursing home along with the staff. Then the HSE will proceed to scale up to the 50 beds. It advises me it has the requisite staff to ensure that can happen. I hope that will happen relatively quickly.”

Deputy Kelly argued that the procedures involved should not be taking as long as they are, and that the Minister’s failure to clarify a date, or even a month when Nenagh residents can expect the nursing home to open is unacceptable.

“The review by HIQA of turning this into a nursing home should take as long as it does to snap my fingers. It is the most modern building in Ireland when it comes to nursing homes. At €24 million it would want to be.

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“I want to know when this will open. That is all I want to know. Give me a date, give me a month. That is all I want to know. Please do that, because I have been here twice now with the Minister of State and I have not got than answer. I really need to know it because there are so many people in the locality who need this open because not every nursing home will take people who are high-dependency.”

Deputy O’Donnell stressed that he appreciates the frustration of of people, including the residents of St. Conlon’s and the people in the local area. He also clarified that an application before HIQA takes around 10 working days to be assessed and that this relevant application has been received within the passed week.

He went on to say that the HSE has assured him that “once residents are moved over along with the staff, the resources are there staff-wise to to be able to move and scale up to the 50-bed unit very quickly”.

“Looking at the cycle of it, we are in the month of September and certainly it will not happen before the end of September. I think that is reasonable to say. We are looking, I hope, at it happening in the month of October. However, once again, I have to work within the parameters that are set down. The key element at the moment is for HIQA to give registration. Once the registration is granted, everything else will move along at pace. We will then have the new 50-bed community nursing home unit in Nenagh up and running.”

Deputy Kelly’s closing remark was short and sweet; “I hope the Minister of State is right about October”.

To which Deputy O’Donnell clarified that he is saying it will not happen in September.

“I think that is reasonable. While I cannot give a firm date, we would be looking at the period from October on.”

In May 2024, thousands took to the streets of Nenagh to protest the decision from the HSE at the time to use the then brand new unit as a temporary stepdown facility for overcrowding at UHL.

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