Ballymun's flagship health centre remains closed as the controversy continues. Martin Wall reports.
The photographs and TV footage of the empty shell of the new €48 million health centre lying idle in Ballymun as patients and staff endured cramped, unsuitable and inadequate facilities in existing premises stood out last year as another example of poor planning and management within the health services.
Of course it was not the only healthcare facility standing unopened. Around the country units worth over €400 million were lying unused. However, in the most of these cases, the Department of Health was strenuously seeking the Department of Finance to provide the day-to-day revenue to open facilities which had been built under the National Development Plan.
In the case of Ballymun, the Department of Health had held up funding due to strong concerns that the project was unauthorised and could be in breach of public procurement rules.
The official files on the project, released at the weekend, reveal an extraordinary level of wrangling between various State agencies including the Department of Health, the former Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA), the Northern Area Health Board, Dublin City Council and its subsidiary company Ballymun Regeneration Ltd, which at one stage seemed likely to end up in the courts and may yet come under the scrutiny of the State's spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The new health centre was to have been part of a flagship development to mark the widescale rejuvenation of Ballymun which had been decided on by the cabinet in 1997.
Under the development many public services in the area would be brought together. Officials of the former Eastern Health Board (EHB) had been involved in the preparatory work for the project.
A report last year from the ERHA to the department on the Ballymun controversy states that by late 2000 the local Northern Area Health Board (which succeeded the EHB) was coming "under increasing pressure to commit" to the project.
The ERHA said construction on the centre began in the summer of 2001 under an agreement between Ballymun Regeneration Ltd (BRL) and a developer "despite no formal documentation being signed off or executed" with the health board.
In February 2002 the Department of Health ordered that no further contractual commitments were to be entered into by health agencies pending a review of all National Development Plan projects.
However, the ERHA later told the Department of Health, based on legal advice, that "given the extent of the partnership between BRL/Dublin City Council and the [ former] Eastern Health Board and the prior agreement of the board to contribute going forward, it is now understood that the NAHB is for all intent and purposes contractually committed".
The ERHA told the department that the shell of the centre was completed in December 2002 and that the local health board had come under considerable pressure to proceed with the fit-out of the premises.
In spring and early summer 2003 the Department of Health warned the ERHA that there was no approval for the project. It also expressed concerns at the procurement procedures followed.
The development would have seen the health board lease part of the premises from BRL and Dublin City Council. However, the Department of Health was worried that ultimately the final bill for such an arrangement could have reached €56 million.
The ERHA later argued there were no public procurement issues involved as the health board had been dealing with two State agencies and was not procuring anything directly from the private sector.
The department files indicate the row rumbled on for a further year and a half and that finally last December Dublin City Council and Ballymun Regeneration Ltd initiated legal proceedings against the NAHB.
In a remarkable briefing report on the project for the Tánaiste and Minister for Health in January, the Department of Health stated that while it supported in principle the provision of the new facilities in Ballymun, it was still concerned at the way the development had been carried out.
The department told the Tánaiste the project had been advanced without its agreement or knowledge and effectively it claimed the local health authorities in Dublin had ignored its concerns and carried on regardless with the development.
The briefing report also revealed that the ERHA and the NAHB had proposed to transfer assets valued at around €6 million to Dublin City Council to cover costs including rent which had arisen between the date of the completion of the Ballymun premises in December 2002 and a projected date of occupancy in 2005.
In late January the new Health Service Executive wrote to the department stating there was now considerable urgency to commission the Ballymun Health Centre.
It warned that it would have to upgrade the existing facility in Ballymun "for health and safety and service delivery reasons" if the go-ahead to fit out the new premises was not forthcoming.
It proposed that the new premises would be leased over a 30-year period at an annual cost of €2 million. The bill for fitting out the centre was to be €12 million. This proposal was subsequently endorsed by the Department of Health and agreed as an exceptional measure by the Department of Finance.
The new centre is expected to open early next year.