McFadden slates HSE over "idle" houses

Fine Gael Longford/Westmeath Senator Nicky McFadden has urged the HSE to immediately house residents from St. Peter"s Centre, Castlepollard, in accommodation specifically purchased by them close to a decade ago in the year 2000.'The disorganisation of the HSE is unfathomable. In 2000, it purchased 10 houses around the Mullingar area to provide homes for residents in St. Peter"s Centre in Castlepollard. There are roughly 70 people living in inexcusable conditions at St. Peter"s Centre, which is an institution for people with intellectual disabilities.The State is failing these people. They should be integrated into the community, close to their families and friends.'These houses which the HSE purchased have not been lived in.If they continue to lie idle they will become dilapidated and unfit for habitation. This is an example of the waste of money over which the HSE has presided and how it has failed the most vulnerable in our society.We have come out of a period of immense wealth but the resident"s of St. Peter"s, who are suffering with intellectual disabilities, have not been given their own space to live in with their own possessions and to chance live their lives with dignity.'The Minister of State, John Maloney, made a promise to me when I raised the matter in the Senate some weeks ago, that staff would be provided to assist the residents moving into their new homes, but still nothing has happened.The recommendations set out in a Vision for Change, the Government"s own policy, are not being implemented.These cuts to frontline services are a damning indictment of the HSE that refuses to priorities people with mental health issues. These people should not be living in such institutions. The Government seems to have learned very little from their past mistakes in how they care for people in institutions.'