By Sean Moriarty

The Health Service Executive’s decision to handover a group of derelict houses to Fingal County Council for social housing sets a precedent that could be applied to St Finan’s Hospital.

That is according to Cllr Marie Moloney who, along with all her elected colleagues, have been pushing to find a solution for the site that has been vacant since 2012.

There is a dire need for housing in the Killarney area but despite several ideas put forward to do something with St Finan’s, so far, nothing has come to fruition.

This week 14 one hundred-year-old derelict cottages were handed over to Fingal County Council.

The north County Dublin houses were previously used to house staff at the nearby St Ita’s psychiatric hospital.

They have been vacant for over 20 years and have fallen in to a state of disrepair but Fingal County Council plans to turn them into social housing under a €4 million restoration plan.

The HSE maintains that the St Finan’s site is for sale at the full market value but so far no realistic bidder has emerged.

“If the HSE can do it there they can do it here in Killarney,” Cllr Moloney told the Killarney Advertiser.

“It is not beyond the bounds of possibility.”

While welcoming the construction of the new community hospital on the grounds of St Finan’s she has raised concerns that the HSE have yet to reveal plans for the existing District Hospital on St Margaret’s Road.

Killarney has had more than its fair share of abandoned buildings in recent years, but plans are now in place to redevelop the Áras Pádraig and Kerry ETB has ambitions to build a college campus on the site of the old Pretty Polly factory.

“The last thing Killarney needs is another idle building. I don’t know what the big secret is but the HSE won’t tell us what their plans are for the District Hospital. It is all cloak and dagger.”