‘The intention is this summer’ says Minister of State on opening date for Tipperary nursing unit

Following an update from the HSE last week stating that they were unsure as to when the Nenagh Community Nursing Unit would be returned to its original purpose, Deputy Alan Kelly asked Government officials to clarify this statement and provide a more detailed update as to the exact status of the unit.

In Dáil Éireann last week he said: “Last April, the town of Nenagh and its surrounds were shocked when the HSE announced that, effectively, it would be taken over as a step-down facility and run by a private company. Nenagh had been screwed when a Fianna Fáil Government closed our emergency department and put our hospital down to a different level.

“The people felt they were being screwed again with regard to the nursing home and went out on the streets to protest it. As a TD and public representative for 20 years based in Nenagh I know of so many families who cannot find elderly care. They cannot find rehab or respite. Here was a 50-bed state-of-the-art nursing home, the best built in Ireland, and it was being taken over. It was a disgrace.

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“To compound this disgrace it was privatised. Residents in St Conlon’s have never got to transfer to the facility and many of them have passed away since. The staff never got to transfer. Recruitment never happened for local staff. I have had to fight to get people into nursing homes throughout the mid-west and further afield, in Galway, Laois and everywhere, you name it. We have had to fight to get people even though we have a 50-bed state-of-the-art unit, which is the best in Ireland, sitting right beside the hospital and our new primary care centre in the middle of the town. It is not acceptable.

“What the former Minister said, and what the regional executive officer, REO, of the HSE said, was that it would be used as a step-down facility for one year to get us over the winter. The winter is gone and we are now into spring. We were told it would be handed back as a residential facility by this summer.

“On Tipp FM a week or so ago, Dr Hennessy, the new clinical lead in UHL, was asked whether it would honour opening the nursing home in the summer of this year. He said he had been assured by the REO before he went on the show that it would be open this year. That was all fine until I received a reply to a parliamentary question asking the exact same thing.

“In his correspondence to me, Ian Carter, CEO of mid-west acute and older people services, referred to my correspondence dated 21 February 2025 and told me no date for the initiative has been agreed at this time. This contradicts what the clinical lead said a week before.”

Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kieran O’Donnell, provided an answer to Deputy Kelly saying “I wish to inform Deputy Kelly that HSE mid-west is working towards a HSE-led model of service delivery at Nenagh community nursing unit.

“This will include long-term residential care services, commencing in quarter three this year, for the current St Conlon’s residents. I also assure the Deputy that I am committed to working alongside the HSE to address all concerns in respect of residential care for older people in Nenagh and north Tipperary, now and into the future.”

“I reiterate the particular point the Deputy raised, which is that the HSE is working towards moving the residents from St Conlon’s to the new community nursing facility in Nenagh within 12 months of the contract being signed with the private provider. That is still the case.

“Obviously, it arose because of the huge pressures in UHL and I appreciate what this means for the residents of St Conlon’s and their families. I will be working to ensure the residents of St Conlon’s are transferred to the new state-of-the-art facility in Nenagh within 12 months of the contract being signed with the private provider to provide the services for the alleviation of pressures on UHL with that 50-bed unit in the community nursing facility in Nenagh.

"The intention is this summer and that continues to be the case.

“Ultimately, my concern, as a Minister of State, is to ensure those residents in St Conlon’s move across and assure their families that they will move across to the new facility in quarter 3 of this year.”