The cost of relocating a Dundrum hospital to a prison site could prove greater than simply redeveloping the current site, according to a report published today.

The report published by the Central Mental Hospital Carers' Group, the Irish Mental Health Coalition and Schizophrenia Ireland says the plans to move the Central Mental Hospital to a Dublin prison site will be more expensive than investing at the Dundrum base.

In the report, entitled 'Patients not Prisoners', Chief Economist at Friends First, Jim Power says the current site could be improved at no cost to the exchequer by selling associated lands and using the funds to rebuild the hospital, which has received criticism for its lack of facilities.

The proposed relocation of the hospital is to the Thornton Hall greenfield site in north Dublin, which was chosen as the preferred area for a new "super-prison", in January 2005.

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Mr Power has suggested selling 14 acres of the 34-acre site in Dundrum could generate €140 million, which would be adequate to construct a new facility, expected to cost around €100 million.

"This decision [to relocate] makes no social or economic sense. It would be far more sensible to sell some of the land at Dundrum and use this revenue to redevelop the existing site. This decision has all the hallmarks of having been scribbled on the back of an envelope," Mr Power told the Irish Times.

"We have seen nothing from the Government to support the economic case for this decision. The HSE has yet to produce a legally required cost-benefit analysis of the options. So we're seeing a Kafkaesque process where the analysis has yet to emerge two years after the decision was taken in May 2006."

In the report, internationally recognised Professor of Forensic Psychiatry Dr Paul Mullen suggested the relocation of the hospital to a prison "would not be in accordance with best therapeutic practice".

A carers' group has argued that not all patients living in the Central Hospital have committed a crime: "Patients have a right to be free from stigma and discrimination. Placing them in a facility beside a prison can only lead to greater stigmatisation of mental illness generally."

Calls have been made to the Minister for Health Mary Harney to step in and reverse the decision.

Ms Harney's department said the new hospital at Thornton "will provide a therapeutic, forensic psychiatric service to the highest international standards, in a state-of–the-art building".

(PR/JM)