Nursing Homes Dail Éireann — 2026-04-15 ============================================================ Thomas Gould (SF), Cork North-Central I appreciate that the Minister of State has said he is going to look into this personally but I am really disappointed because four years on it is still not open. The 25 beds in the nursing home are also really important but people with dementia are really vulnerable. They are scattered around nursing homes all over County Cork when there is a purpose-built nursing home at Heather House. I was hoping that the Minister of State would be able to give me a date today. Regardless of whether it is June, July or August, I would like to have a date for those families. There is one gentleman who is in a special unit at Cork University Hospital because there is nowhere for him to go. His family are afraid that he is going to die in hospital. He comes from the area. He comes from Church Street. This unit is at the top of Gurranabraher, right next to Church Street. The family are saying they want to bring him home or as close to home as they can. For too long, the HSE and HIQA have not been giving answers or a date. I want a date so I can go back to the people of the northside. I could fill that dementia unit. Does the Minister of State see this notebook I am holding? It contains the details of people who could enter this dementia unit. I could fill the whole unit with people who are looking to get into it. I appreciate what the Minister of State is saying but we need a definite timeline for the opening of the unit. People on the northside are sick and tired of being the last to get anything and the first to lose services. Why is it that the northside must always fight? Why must I come in here every week to stand up for the northside? Heather House has been built and the funding is supposed to be there. The Minister mentioned units at St. Finbarr's and in Midleton. I do not think they will be open before the end of the year. The Minister of State has said they will be opening and that those beds will be available but I have fierce doubts about that. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-15