The Relocation of Dundrum Mental Hospital to Thornton Hall

The report today from Central Mental Hospital Carers’ Group, the Irish Mental Health Coalition and Schizophrenia Ireland about the desirability of moving the Central Mental Hospital from Dundrum to Thornton Hall emphasised two major things for me – the first political and relevant, the second trivial, unoriginal and selfinvolved.

The first point is that this site at Thornton Hall looks like it could turn into a nasty problem for the government, they paid well over the odds for the site and will shoehorn this onto the area to extract value from the decision by selling land in Dundrum. That decision will end up doing damage to the status of sufferers of mental health and according to Dr Harry Kennedy (director of the Hospital, not consulted about the move) impair recruitment. Check out the bebo that has been set up to get a million signatures together to protest.

Mental health is an issue that is treated appallingly in this country, we lose 500 people a year to suicide but spend a fraction of the amount spent on road safety on preventing suicide and addressing its wider mental health issues. Politics doesn’t respond to those with no voice, I suppose.

While the Green party were at pains last night on Q&A to emphasise their return to focussing on their ministries and a narrower agenda (perfectly entitled to do that), I did find a statement on this issue from a year ago on the Bebo site above;

We regard this Government’s plans to re-locate the Central Mental Hospital to a site alongside the planned Thornton Prison as being totally unacceptable. Such a move will accentuate the stigma and isolation/social exclusion of the mentally ill.

I hope they raise it at Cabinet at the very least, more here.

The second point is that the debate today, invariably featuring Jim Power but excellently done by Vincent Browne on his Nightly News was of the highest quality. John Moloney was on with VB and many of his points are worth listening to, primarily his admission about the role of cost in this decision and his avoiding explaining how Harry Kennedy was not consulted. It didn’t come across well but wasn’t awful, perhaps because of the issue at heart but also Moloney’s straight forwardness at times (when it suited him admittedly).

Yet there is little or no way to get it streaming onto any blog or news site without a great deal of tech. Politicians wont cry, neither probably will media (ask RTE who have kept ownership of so much content) but it is something that really needs to change or get left behind. I admitted this is a self indulgent point but one that is increasingly relevant. I know Simon and others are pushing this and they are right, politics needs it.