Hospital patients waiting for hostel move – 2 years on

Date Published: 20-Jul-2007

Five people with special needs, who between them say they have spent at least forty years in hospital, have sent an appeal to Health Minister Mary Harney to allow them move into a new home they were promised.

The five now live in Unit 9A of Merlin Park Hospital in Galway, but they told Minister Harney in a letter this week that they were told two years ago a new hostel was ready for them in Connemara.

And they told the Minister that for them moving back to a Gaeltacht area was even more of a homecoming – for they are all native Irish speakers, and have already seen their promised home which is ‘modern and bright,’ and in which they would all have their own rooms.

This week their plea to Minister Harney was…….