Junior Health Minister Daly: ‘West Cork to be a leader in elderly care'

CORK South West will be a national leader in the provision of care for the elderly, Minister Jim Daly pledged at the opening of a special care unit in Bandon on Friday.  

The €1.368m special project will provide nine homes for older people who wish to live independently.  

The project, Avenue Grove Bandon, was completed by the Geriatric Society and Community Council and the St Michael’s Centre in Bandon and residents are already settled into their homes. 

Commenting on the development Mr Daly said the state-of-the art development ‘points the way forward to the future’.

He added: ‘Too often we respect the spirit and the desire of our elderly citizens for independence in theory, but not in practice. These homes, built at huge value, show West Cork is leading the way in new and better ways of caring for the elderly.’

He said it was the start of finding more sophisticated ways to deal with our aged than a nursing home-fits-all solution.

‘Though nursing homes do valuable work, they do not fit all sizes. Bandon, with this community-led initiative supported by government funding, is indicative of the way we must do things in future; providing independence and choice,’ he said.

The houses are allocated at Ballymodan Place in Bandon and the project was funded through the capital assistance scheme in the Department of Housing.