Westmeath County Council will deal with an unusual application within the next fortnight. It will have to decide on an application to "retain a demolished building".
Even more odd is the fact that the application is in the name of the Midland Health Board and the building involved is a "listed" building on the council's books.
To compound the mystery, the stone from the demolished building, the Infirmary at the old workhouse in Mullingar, has already been exported to mainland Europe. There, in Flanders, the disputed stones are being built into the form of a round tower, Ireland's best-known architectural structure, to honour the war dead of the Great War.
Sean O'Brien, a Mullingar schoolteacher and historian, describes what has happened as a mess and a disgrace. The health board is saying nothing, and Westmeath County Council is currently making up its mind.
Mr O'Brien and other concerned citizens of Mullingar discovered too late that the Midland Health Board was in the process of demolishing the Infirmary last July. "It was an awful disgrace. The old infirmary was part of the workhouse, which has been here in the town for 154 years and forms part of our Famine history," he said.
"Not only that, but it was a listed building and should have been preserved. It's the only example of such a building left in the midlands because the old Union buildings have been demolished," he said.
When he heard that it was being exported, an action committee to save the building, which is part of the old folks' home, was set up.
"It's an important part of our history and should not have been touched. Only one wall of the building - which housed people during the Famine and right up through the TB crisis which ended in the 1960s - is left," he said.
Mr O'Brien said that the building had been run down by the Midland Health Board, which had taken off the roof slates and allowed it to fall into disrepair.
"Don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with honouring the dead from the first World War, but it should not have been done with stone from an important, listed building which is so much part of the history of Mullingar," he said.
No one quite knows what will be the outcome of this local row.
Will the stone be returned from abroad? Will the health board be forced to rebuild it?
That decision will be known in about a fortnight.