Councillor accuses HSE of ‘deliberately misleading’ information over Ballyhaunis Primary Care Centre

A local councillor has accused the HSE of ‘deliberately misleading’ her over the long-running Ballyhaunis Primary Care Centre project. 

Cllr Alma Gallagher attacked the lack of progress on the primary care centre after the HSE refused to confirm if it would be fully complete by 2025. 

The primary care centre was left incomplete for more than three years after the developer, Sharpdale Ltd, stopped work on the building after it became no longer economically viable.

Following successful negotiations, the developer agreed to recommence work on the building in September.

In that same month, the HSE said it ‘might occupy the building in late 2025’. It added that significant activity on site was ‘not anticipated until October 2024 when both the mechanical and electrical subcontractors are due to return to site’.

Cllr Gallagher cast doubt on the expected timeline for opening the primary care centre due to the slow pace of construction. 

In response to a question from Cllr Gallagher at Tuesday’s HSE Regional Forum West, the HSE said the developer had advised them that ‘practical completion’ was expected in May 2025.

Cllr Gallagher said that ‘false deadlines’ were continuously being given for the project, which first stalled in April 2021. 

“I don’t know whether you are intentionally misleading a public representative or basically you have no engagement whatsoever with the developer,” she said. 

“On Friday, I was passing the HSE building and I saw one worker there on the scaffolding in the snow. It’s just not good enough. There doesn’t seem to be any full-scale activity,” she added.

“None of this is making any sense. Ballyhaunis, the population is rising three times faster than the county average, we have the most diverse town in Ireland and yet this project is allowed to linger with absolutely no urgency from the HSE or the developer while the developer is actually developing other primary health care centres around the country. So I don’t know where the priorities are here.” 

Tony Canavan, Executive Chairman of the Regional Health Forum, described the project as ‘a priority’ for the HSE but could not confirm when a full resumption of activity would commence. 

He explained that the term ‘practical completion’ meant that the contractor was ‘almost finished on site’.

He said the contractor was currently carrying out ‘minor works’ and that a completion date would be ‘firmed up’ following further engagement with the contractor. 

“After that, we would then expect that the building would have to be commissioned, which means that it’d need to be equipped, cleaned, et cetera and then brought into service,” said Mr Canavan. 

Cllr Gallagher said that the the May 2025 practical completion date did not make sense given the remaining works had been given a ten-month timeline for completion. 

The Fine Gael representative described the information given by the HSE as ‘very very vague’. 

Mr Cavanan responded: “The practical completion date that we have right now is May 2025. There isn’t much more that I can see beyond that.”