Green light for €30m Portlaoise primary care centre

A LONG-AWAITED €30m primary care centre for Portlaoise has received a green light at last.

Planning permission has been granted for the purpose-built centre on St Fintan’s Hospital campus on the Dublin Road.

The four-storey building will include GP surgeries, dental and orthodontic surgeries, outpatient services, consultant treatment rooms, physiotherapy and occupational therapy rooms, X-ray and ultrasound services.

There will also be group rooms for day hospital use, together with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), administrative offices, ancillary staff and meeting rooms, clinical and utility stores and waiting areas.

A new car park will contain 104 spaces, including accessible spaces and electrical vehicle charging places. There will also be 80 bicycle spaces and other facilities, including an ESB substation and linkage of the roads in St Fintan’s campus.

The HSE applied for planning permission for the much-needed centre from Laois County Council last August, after many months of preparation.

Welcoming the news this evening, Independent Laois TD Brian Stanley said: ‘This is a critical piece of infrastructure that is badly needed.

‘I have been raising this consistently with the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach.

‘It is important now that the money is provided to bring this project, which is believed to be about €30 million, to fruition.

“Portlaoise is a town of around 30,000 people which, to my mind, makes it the biggest town in the country not to have a primary health care centre.

‘The increased amount of services available because of this will shorten wait times elsewhere in the system.

‘This site is shovel ready so there can be no backing away from it now and the government must deliver.’