The former Baggot Street hospital building in Dublin is to be sold by the HSE on the open market as no State agency wanted to take it over.
However, part of the complex, off Haddington Road, has been earmarked as the site of a new primary care centre for the south Dublin inner city.
The facility, which was known officially as the Royal City of Dublin Hospital, was built in 1832 but closed in 1987. Parts of the premises, at the Haddington Road junction with Baggot Street, were used as a drug treatment and community facility until 2019.
The building on Baggot Street is a protected structure. Campaigners in the area have over the years put forward various proposals for the use of the building and the site, from it being used to accommodate asylum seekers to a location for a Viking museum.
Leading Kinahan cartel figure Sean McGovern being extradited from UAE to Ireland
Independents Barry Heneghan, Gillian Toole vote against Coalition and in favour of Sinn Féin’s pro-Palestine Bill
Gardaí fear mother was held captive in Dublin ‘house of horrors’ for many years
John Magnier tells Barne Estate trial that money does not mean much to him except as a way ‘to keep score’
In a reply to local Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan on Monday on foot of a parliamentary question, the HSE said it planned to split the former hospital site into two sections.
It said one portion of the site, off Haddington Road, adjacent to the former Baggot Street Hospital building, had been identified as a suitable location for the development of a primary care centre to serve the south Dublin inner city area.
The HSE said the remainder of the site was registered as surplus to requirements on the Office of Public Works Inter State Property Register and had been available for acquisition by other State entities.
“As there has been no uptake on same, tender documentation is currently being prepared to appoint an agent for the disposal of this property on the open market,” the HSE said.
Mr Geoghegan, a Dublin Bay South TD and former lord mayor, told The Irish Times on Monday it was “a scandal that such a historic building has been left to rot behind locked gates while the HSE dragged its feet for years”.
He said: “As the Baggotonia Festival celebrates the area’s creative soul, we can only hope this long overdue process finally delivers the investment needed to bring the building back to life.”
The HSE said Dublin City Council had issued notice of its intention earlier this month to grant planning permission for the development of the primary care unit on one part of the site. This is subject to a four-week period for submission of any objections before the final grant of planning permission being issued.
“This intention to grant planning permission is subject to specific conditions which are currently being reviewed by the HSE,” it said.
The HSE told the Department of Health last year that the former hospital building was now surplus to its needs and “it is not in the main, considered suitable for the delivery of public healthcare services into the future”.
