The former Mount Carmel private hospital in Dublin has been bought by the HSE for a reported €11 million.

About 300 staff at Mount Carmel, which provided maternity and other medical and surgical services, lost their jobs in January after liquidators were appointed.

The HSE will use Mount Carmel, which stands on a 4.9 acre site in Churchtown in Dublin, as a step down facility for patients who no longer need care in an acute hospital.

A spokesman for the HSE said today that it could confirm that it has purchased Mount Carmel but could not coment on the price involved.

The HSE said the it would be used primarily for step down services and that it would be commissioned at some stage next year.

The trade union Siptu today welcomed the purchase of Mount Carmel by the HSE.

Siptu health division organiser Paul Bell said the union would be seeking an engagement with the HSE on the staffing ofthe facility.

He said it would also be looking for details on the categories of patients to be treated there and on the refurbishment plans for the complex.

The former Minister for Health James Reilly told an Oireachtas committee in February that the HSE was examining whether the former Mount Carmel private hospital could be transformed into a step-down care facility.

He said the examination could focus on whether the facility could provide rehabilitation services for older patients in particular who did not require further acute hospital care.

At the time Dr Reilly strongly defended the decision of the Government not to purchase Mount Carmel hospital before it went into liquidation.

He said in the context of the Government’s aim to provide bilocated and trilocated facilities, “the acquisition of Mount Carmel as a stand-alone maternity hospital would, I believe, represent a retrograde step”.