I welcome back my constituency colleague, Deputy Boyd Barrett, and wish him well in the rest of his recovery. I would like to raise the status of the long-promised primary healthcare centre for Loughlinstown and the surrounding communities. The HSE confirmed earlier this year that the operational lease process for the new Loughlinstown primary care centre collapsed when the preferred operator withdrew for viability reasons. The HSE advised it is now carrying out a service-led review before deciding on the next steps. I fully accept the HSE must ensure value for money and that projects are deliverable. However, it is vital this review does not quietly become a vehicle to move the primary care centre out of Loughlinstown and into Cherrywood or elsewhere. Loughlinstown, Ballybrack and the wider area have some of the highest levels of disadvantage in my constituency. It is also an area with a significantly older population, with the Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey and Loughlinstown community healthcare network recording 20% of residents to be aged over 65 compared with 15% nationally. They are precisely the communities that most depend on accessible, local primary care. Cherrywood, by contrast, is a new strategic development zone built from a new urban centre with plans for more than 10,000 homes and a projected population of roughly 26,000 people, orientated towards younger working households, well served by the Luas and the new town centre facilities. Cherrywood, rightly, will need services of its own but they should be additional to, not a replacement for, the long-promised upgrade of the primary healthcare centre in Loughlinstown. There is already a HSE health centre and primary care team in Loughlinstown delivering valuable services on the ground today. The purpose of this project is to modernise and expand those services on or adjacent to the existing site and not to relocate them elsewhere from people with the greatest need. I ask the Minister, on behalf of the Taoiseach, for whom he is taking questions today, to reaffirm the Government's commitment to delivering a new primary care centre in Loughlinstown, serving Loughlinstown, Ballybrack, Shankill, Shanganagh and the surrounding estates, and to confirm that the current HSE service-led plan will explicitly take into account the deprivation and age profile in deciding its location so we do not see a shift of resources from an older, lower income community to a more affluent, younger one.

Sentiment score: 0.35

I thank the Minister for that reply and acknowledge what the HSE states about the regional health areas and the single point of access. However, this primary care centre is nearly a decade in the making. I understand it has planning permission, or did at one stage, and it beggars belief how long this has taken to redesign and redevelop the existing site where primary care is being administered at the moment. There is genuine concern locally that as Cherrywood continues to grow and attract investment, there will be pressure to rationalise, as was mentioned in the reply from the HSE, by shifting the new primary care centre there instead. It might look more efficient on a map or on a desktop but it ignores the original objective of that project that was conceived to serve an older and less well-off community. The demographics illustrate that, even in the HSE's original documentation. I ask for a commitment from the HSE to meet local TDs prior to any finalisation of any review but it is also important to highlight-----

Sentiment score: 0.43

Go raibh maith agat.

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