Around a delightful, small, new estate on the outskirts of Charleville, Co Cork, placards demand the removal from the estate of a home designed to house persons recently discharged from mental hospitals, writes Vincent Browne.
On weekends and evenings when there are directors or would-be residents in the home, pickets are mounted outside and the sponsors of the venture claim to have been intimidated and terrified by the scale and hostility of the protest. In addition, the home of the sponsor of the project, Joan Hamilton, in nearby Dromina, has been picketed regularly.
A Minister of State for the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government (the department which has funded the purchase of the home), Batt O'Keeffe TD, has sent privately to the protesting residents documents which has emboldened the residents in their protest. None of the other local TDs, Michael Moynihan and Donal Moynihan (both of Fianna Fáil) and Gerard Murphy (of Fine Gael) have been willing to take a stand against the picketing of the home and the intense protest, including the picketing of the home of the venture's sponsor.
The home is being sponsored by an organisation, Slí Eile, whose driving force has been Joan Hamilton, who previously founded a mental health advocacy organisation, Cork Advocacy Network. It secured funding last December from the Department of the Environment for the purchase of the home. News of this funding was passed to the local newspaper, the Vale Star, by Michael Moynihan TD, before there was an opportunity on the part of the promoters to inform the local residents of the venture.
Since last January, placards have been placed at the entrance and around the estate and on fences overlooking the home. Since early April the home has been picketed on a continuous basis whenever anyone is present. The private home of Joan Hamilton has been picketed repeatedly, on the basis that her home is also the registered address of Slí Eile. Her car was surrounded by picketers on one occasion, she states, preventing her from leaving the residence in Charleville and, on another occasion, she and one of the would-be residents of the home were followed closely into the town centre by several protesters, one of them walking backwards in front of them with a placard "stuck" in their faces a few inches away.
The residents claim to be in favour of the idea of supported housing for people recently discharged from mental institutions and justify their opposition to the Slí Eile venture on the basis of a lack of consultation, the supply to them of inadequate information when they first wanted to know what was being planned, and the deferral of an initial meeting between Slí Eile and themselves.
The residents now refuse to meet Slí Eile or to discuss any compromise, other than the removal of the project from their midst.
In an interview in connection with this column, Batt O'Keeffe TD, Minister of State, acknowledged he had passed on documentation to the residents, documents he had received from Cork County Council and the Health Service Authority. He said he had done so because he had been approached by the residents some months ago and he thought it proper to let them have documentation, even though this related to communications between Slí Eile and the public authorities.
One such document sent by Slí Eile to one of the agencies discussed options available to Slí Eile, including a strategy to "brazen out" the protests, to "shame" the residents through media pressure and an option to move the venture elsewhere.
Mr O'Keeffe said he was entirely in favour of the Slí Eile project and that he had urged both sides to resolve the impasse. Asked how he thought the disclosure of these documents to the residents could help resolve the impasse, he said the option proposed to move elsewhere was "very positive". He claimed it was a "public document". Mr O'Keeffe claimed "massive mistakes" had been made by both sides. Asked what "massive mistakes" had been made by Slí Eile, he said the failure to consult the residents at the outset was "a massive mistake". Asked if he thought that error justified the protests that have taken place, he repeated "massive mistakes have been made by both sides".
Slí Eile's intentions had been to move five former psychiatric hospital patients into the residence and with them a full-time caretaker. The objective was to assist the former patients to learn again how to cope for themselves, to cook, to shop, to run their lives generally and in a supportive environment. Such initiatives have been urged repeatedly by agencies involved in mental health; indeed, Batt O'Keeffe himself, when chairman of the Southern Health Board, spoke in favour of such initiatives.
Batt O'Keeffe was elected in the 2002 general election and in previous elections for the Cork South Central constituency (essentially a Cork City constituency). However, because of a change of constituency boundaries and the removal of his home base to the constituency of Cork North West, he has opted to stand in the next election in the latter constituency, which stretches from the outskirts of Cork city to the far reaches of north Cork, including the town of Charleville.