HSE shelling out more than €800k a year in rent for Cork primary care centre

The HSE is paying €807,625.50 a year to rent the Ballincollig Primary Care Centre alone — with other primary care centres across Cork likely facing similar costs.

New figures have shown that the State could be set to pay millions of euro in rental costs for primary care centres over the next 25 years — without the HSE ever owning the facilities.

The current cost for Ballincollig Primary Care Centre is €16.50 per sq ft, excluding Vat, according to figures provided to Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould.

The likely post-Vat figure would be closer to €1m, Mr Gould said, explaining that over the 25-year lease, this will see the HSE pay well in excess of €20m for a building that they will never own.

This is on top of the fit-out and equipping costs, which the HSE revealed were over €1.8m, including Vat, for Ballincollig Primary Care Centre.

The HSE has delivered over 100 primary care centres nationally via its Operational Lease Model, which sees the HSE agree to pay a quarterly rent and service charge to a landlord for a 25-year lease period (with an option to extend) for the provision of a centre.

Concerning

Mr Gould said: “What is particularly concerning is that planning documents show that the same company are building primary care centres now in Bishopstown, Douglas, and Glanmire. With centres also due to be built in Mayfield and Blarney, this could see the State spending €4.9m a year on leases in Cork for buildings they will never own.

“There are serious questions to be answered here about whether this actually represents good value for money,” he said.

“Across the State, there are already 109 of these leases in operation. If they cost similar to the Ballincollig model, we are looking at the HSE paying out... over €2bn, excluding outfitting and maintenance, for buildings we will never own, it hardly represents good value for money.”

He said Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael “cannot handle large projects — this is proof that they often just give up on them and hand them over to private companies.”

Crazy

Councillor for Cork City South West, Joe Lynch said: “This is a crazy amount of money being paid out for a building that will never be owned by the HSE. The people of Ballincollig will still need a Primary Care Centre when this lease is up — so what happens then?

“This speaks volumes about Government’s attitude to taxpayers’ money. It is waste after waste. We welcomed strongly the opening of this facility. It was badly needed in Ballincollig but there are serious questions about why the HSE themselves didn’t build it.”

A HSE spokesperson said that “capital and estates have delivered 177 primary care centres, 109 via the operational lease model”.

Strategy

They said the Department of Health published a strategy for the development of primary care services in 2001. However, “it was not feasible to develop the planned network of primary care centres within the required timeline due to the availability of existing sites and the need to accelerate the development of primary care centres solely through the HSE capital planning process.”

They also said the lease model “is conditional on GPs also operating from the primary care centre, the onus is on the developer to ensure the presence of GPs.

“All selected proposals are subject to normal HSE approval processes and will be rigorously examined in relation to all aspects including whether it represents value for money to the HSE.”