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08 Oct 2025

Health Minister backs Midlands hospice on chosen Tullamore site

Visit to Arden Lane where permission is being sought to build regional palliative care unit

John Clendennen, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Tony McCormack

John Clendennen TD, Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Tony McCormack TD at the site for the proposed Midlands hospice

THE proposed hospice for the Midlands should be built on the Tullamore site which was chosen by the previous Government, Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said this evening (Thursday, April 17).

The Health Service Executive has lodged a planning application for a 20-bed palliative care unit on Arden Lane and the location was visited by the Health Minister along with HSE officials, medics, hospice campaigners and local elected representatives.

After viewing the site Minister Carroll MacNeill remarked: “I know this is badly needed so we just want to see it drive ahead, subject to all of the appropriate processes.”

The Minister was then asked by Cllr Frank Moran if she had been briefed on the existence of an alternative site in Tullamore and if she had been told a material contravention of the Offaly County Development Plan would be needed for the project to proceed on Arden Lane.

The Fianna Fail councillor also reminded the Minister that her predecessor, Minister Stephen Donnelly, had stipulated that if the hospice is to be built on the Arden Lane site, planning permission must be granted by September of this year.

“Have you taken any consideration [of] that or are you just planning ahead with this particular site?” asked Cllr Moran.

The Minister, a Dublin-based Fine Gael TD whose father was the first manager of Tullamore Credit Union, said she was very conscious of what her Fianna Fail cabinet colleague, Finance Minister Jack Chambers had said about the need to “cut through” the problems in infrastructural provision.

“Because we've had so many projects take too long and people need the projects. We have the money at the moment - thank God - will we always have the money? I don't know. But we have to deliver. Because every month that goes by that we're not delivering infrastructure, that infrastructure is getting more expensive,” said the Minister.

She added: “I'm very conscious of the need to drive forward public infrastructure and certainly Jack Chambers and I are working on the infrastructure guidelines about trying to make sure that we're not having to make repeated business cases.”

She said she was also “very sensitive” that the “proper democratic process that has to happen” should not be interfered with by her as minister.

“But it's exciting to see plans and exciting to see the project move ahead.”

Also speaking at the site viewing, Dr Pauline Kane, Midlands palliative care consultant, said a location like the one selected in Tullamore was a “dream” of hers having trained in London where “there were trains going past the windows”, no parking and “people were upstairs”.

The Arden Lane site is a greenfield site where the building can be one-storey only and every bedroom will have access to outdoor fresh air.

“Money couldn't buy this and we have room for expansion and the expansion will also mean that all those bedrooms are on the ground floor,” said Dr Kane.

When Cllr Declan Harvey, Fianna Fail, remarked that it was lucky that there were two sites because there would be the other one “to fall back on”, Minister Carroll MacNeill replied: “I'm not sure. We just need to move ahead.”

Another Tullamore Municipal District councillor, Cllr Neil Feighery, Fine Gael, referred to the “beautiful rolling valleys” of the Arden Lane site and noted it had the support of hospice groups from outside Offaly.

“The other hospice groups have been so kind to allow this to come to Co Offaly. It would be inconceivable that we would not pass the material contravention at that stage,” said Cllr Feighery.

Offaly Fine Gael TD John Clendennen stressed the dignity which people at the latter stage of life need and how important it is to give them the best opportunity to enjoy their final days.

“But also from a family perspective that they can meet in an environment that is what you see here in terms of the green grass, the blue skies and be surrounded by nature but yet have state of the art clinical expertise,” said Deputy Clendennen.

He thanked all the groups across the Midlands for their support and also acknowledged the work of Tullamore Lions Club whose Hooves for Hospice campaign had enabled the acquisition of the Arden Lane site which he said was “within a stone's throw” of the oncology unit in Tullamore's Midlands Regional Hospital.

The TD said the hospice building project could take 36 months and added: “I want to see it delivered during this term of the Government... I would hope that everyone will lend their support to it to ensure that we deliver this much needed facility.”

READ NEXT: Work to begin on new care centre in Offaly

Joe Ruane, HSE Midlands, said it had been a “major breakthrough” to get the project so far and recalled that it had begun in 2002.

The Midlands is a region without a hospice but four counties, Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath had come together and agreed on a Tullamore location.

“Through compromise and everyone's commitment to the hospice of the area, we've the Midlands Hospice, Hooves for Hospice, Offaly Hospice, Laois Hospice, North Westmeath Hospice, we've South Westmeath Hospice, Longford Hospice and the Irish Hospice Foundation, all have played a pivotal role in gathering thoughts and developing plans,” said Mr Ruane.

The Arden Lane site was selected ahead of one at the Wellwood health campus in Tullamore after a tender-like adjudication process where points were awarded across a number of different criteria.

Unlike Arden Lane, the Wellwood site is zoned for health infrastructure and is where a local development company John Flanagan Developments has planning permission to build a private hospital on the town bypass.

Some campaigners were concerned that a hospice on the Wellwood site would have to be a two-storey structure.

The first site mooted for the Midlands palliative care unit, for which €20 million in Government funding has been committed, was on the grounds of the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore but it was deemed too small.

The Arden Lane site (pictured below) is adjacent to Tullamore Pitch and Putt Club which in turn is beside the Condron Concrete works.

Former Health Minister Donnelly also indicated that proposals to widen the Arden Lane road should be in place by September of this year for the hospice project there to go ahead.

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