What a waste of money!

The bill to the taxpayer for an aborted HSE plan to build an Athlone Primary Care facility amounts to more than €1 million, the Westmeath Independent can reveal. Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request show the sums spent on consultants, designers and other costs before the plug was finally pulled on the project last year. The plan to develop the healthcare facility in Clonbrusk was initially mooted in 1999 but it then faltered through a litany of delays and false starts over an 11-year period. The HSE said a shortage of funds was the reason why it scrapped its plan to build the primary care facility in 2010, but by that stage a whopping €982,373 had been spent on design and consultants fees for the project. A further €35,590 was expended from HSE coffers for planning and fire certification fees relating to the development. This combined total of €1,017,963 for a plan that was ultimately abandoned could have made a significant contribution to improving other areas of the ailing Irish healthcare system. The HSE bought the Clonbrusk site for €1,269,738 in 2001. After the bottom fell out of its own primary care plan it put a portion of the site up for sale on the condition that a developer would come in to build a primary care centre and lease it back to the HSE. Earlier this year Ath Medical Partnership was granted planning permission to develop a smaller-scale primary care facility at the Clonbrusk site. A spokesperson for the HSE said yesterday that the contract for this development had not yet been signed. The spokesperson said it was hoped the contract would be in place, and construction work would start, within the next two months.