Council investigating deterioration of Baggot Street Hospital

Dublin City Council has “initiated planning enforcement procedures” against the owner of the vacant, deteriorating Baggot Street Hospital in Dublin 4, it says.

The building is on Dublin City Council’s record of protected structures, meaning its owner – the HSE – has a legal obligation to take good care of it.

On 15 April, a guy called Jamie Robinson posted a video on TikTok showing the inside of the hospital.

Some areas looked to be in decent shape, like they’d been left only moments ago, with flyers still on notice boards.

In other areas, paint is peeling – and at one point there’s a view of a corridor where the ceiling appears to have fallen in and the floor is littered with debris.

A few days later, on 22 April, Dublin resident Colm Moore emailed the council, expressing his concern about the state of the building.

It “seems to be subjected to repeated damage, break-ins, graffiti, internal litter, internal damage, and possible fire damage,” Moore wrote. “The owner, the HSE, appears to be in denial, claiming fulltime security.”

About four months later, Moore received that letter from the council, saying it was taking planning enforcement action.

“I wish to advise you that this matter is currently under investigation under File reference C0026/22 and your concerns have been added to this file,” the letter says. “We have issued a warning letter to the developer.”

A spokesperson for the HSE said on 20 August that it is taking care of the building.

“The HSE has undertaken clear out works at the premises, continue to provide security to the property, continue to carry out maintenance and any risk management works as deemed necessary, and have communicated same with Dublin City Council,” she said.

When is the council’s investigation likely to be finished, and what are the possible outcomes? “This matter is currently under investigation and we cannot comment on an ongoing investigation,” a council spokesperson said.

From riches to rags

The Royal City of Dublin Hospital was first built in 1832.

It expanded over the years, including in the late 1890s, when the Earl of Pembroke funded a round of expansion and restoration that made it what it looks like today, architect John Dorman said in 2021.

The Heritage Council says it’s “of exceptional architectural merit”.

In 1987, the building closed as a hospital, though some parts of the complex remained in use up until 2019, according to a report from Dublin City Council.

The building had deteriorated, and getting it back up to standard would take “extensive works”, it says the HSE had found.

Since then, it’s just been sitting there, empty. Although, it’s not on the council’s vacant sites register or derelict sites register, so the HSE isn’t being fined via either of those two routes for leaving it unused.

For years, residents, councillors and TDs have been pushing for something to be done with the building, other than just leaving it to rot.

In 2022, Dublin City Council did an evaluation of whether the building could serve as emergency accommodation for homeless families.

It concluded that it’d cost more than €17.5 million to fix it up, and the process would take at least three and a half years.

In 2023, the council “held a number of meetings” with the HSE about refurbishing the building “to create apartments, either for use as social housing, or to provide housing for public sector employees working in healthcare or other sectors”, the council’s chief executive said in January of this year.

“The last meeting between the HSE and the Adaptive Reuse Unit in the DCC Housing Department took place in March 2023,” says the response to Caroline Conroy, then a Green Party councillor, about the future of the building.

“Subsequent to this meeting, a decision was made by DCC Housing Department not to pursue the HSE any further in relation to the potential redevelopment of this building,” the chief executive’s reply says.

Partial plans

On the gates of the hospital, there’s a notice posted, saying the HSE intends to apply for planning permission.

It applied on 5 April, but that application was quickly declared invalid, because of problems with the drawings included. It applied again on 25 April, and the council accepted this application.

The plan it presented was to separate the main, protected hospital building from some much newer, connected buildings added on later – fronting onto Haddington Road.

The HSE would then knock these 1950s buildings attached to the back of the Victorian-era hospital, and build a new primary care centre on that site.

“The aim would be to leave a market ready lot (protected Baggot street hospital) which would be attractive to buyers,” the architectural design statement says.

The Heritage Council submitted a letter objecting to this approach, and how it doesn’t include a plan for the main hospital building.

“The abandonment of historic buildings, indicative of this application” undermines the council’s development plan for the city, the letter says.

The council’s planners also raised concerns about the application and in June decided to request more information. The first thing on the list?

“The Planning Authority has serious concerns regarding the separation of The Royal City of Dublin Hospital … from the development site, and the lack of any future plan with proposed timelines for development for this sensitive Protected Structure and its associated buildings which has been left vacant by the HSE since 2019,” the planner’s report says.

“The applicant is requested to re examine the potential reuse of the former Hospital,” the report says.

The root of the problem?

Local Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey is one of several councillors who’ve raised the vacancy of the building over the years.

In February, he submitted a motion asking the council to take enforcement action against the HSE over “the deteriorating condition” of the Baggot Street hospital building – much as Moore did in April.

Lacey’s fellow councillors on the South East Area Committee supported the motion. This might explain why the council said in its letter to Moore that it already had a file going.

On Tuesday, Lacey said by phone that “I think the HSE should be charged with vandalism”, over its treatment of the building.

The root of the problem, Lacey said, is that the people who run the HSE are not elected and don’t face consequences from the public for decisions they make – like leaving the Baggot Street Hospital vacant and deteriorating.

“That lack of accountability is a core, ongoing issue with government in Ireland,” he said.

Lacey said he and other councillors who sit on the Dublin Mid-Leinster Regional Health Forum are due to visit the hospital in late September.

“I think we’ll find it’s in bits,” he said. “But the question is how they let it deteriorate to this point. Somehow, some person or group of people decided to allow it.”