Construction has commenced on a new €38m Community Hospital in Carrick-on-Shannon in County Leitrim.

The hospital, which is expected to be complete in Q1 2027, will contain 90-beds facilitating long stay, short stay and dementia wards. The building will also accommodate a designated rehabilitation facility on Level 2.

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill recently visited the site to lay the first brick, marking a significant milestone in the project, which is a major investment in health and social care for older people across the county.

Minister Carroll MacNeill said: "I am delighted to have been invited to lay the first brick of the new Community Hospital today. This project reflects our commitment to enhancing the delivery of healthcare across all life stages and enabling the provision of care closer to home."


Each long stay household will have 23 en-suite single bedrooms and one en-suite twin bedroom, a total of 25 residents. The short stay household will accommodate 20 residents in 20 en-suite single bedrooms.

The design of the Community Hospital aims to create a person-centred approach which supports the opportunity for older people to continue to direct their own lives in accordance with their cognitive and physical abilities, and in an environment which reflects the comforts of home. This will be done by the creation of households within the overall centre.

Each household will have their own dayroom, dining room and kitchen area at the centre of the home. In each of the 25-bed households, there will be one dayroom/ sun room and one shared dining room that can be compartmentalised, and which can open out to the gardens. There will also be a quiet room for reading, reflection or meeting with visitors which can also open out to the outdoor space.

There will be 20 dementia-specific assessment beds, to be accommodated on the ground floor in two 10-bedded households. The design of each household will support the continued engagement of residents living with dementia in meaningful person centred activities, and residents will be afforded access to a secure, therapeutic, landscaped courtyard.