Planning go-ahead for €110m private hospital in Cork

A €110 MILLION state-of-the-art private hospital, expected to create 400 jobs in Cork’s western suburbs, was granted planning permission yesterday.

The development, off the Bandon Road in Bishopstown, will offer 100 beds and be constructed by Sheehan Medical, the group that built the Galway Clinic, Blackrock Clinic and Hermitage Clinic, valued in excess of €100m each.

Sheehan Medical said it would be “one of a set of hospitals throughout Europe designed for the 21st century”.

Cork County Council had originally refused an application for a six-storey building housing three 30-bed wards, 36 consulting suites and four in-patient operating theatres.

However, according to the property consultant on the project, Pat Shine, the council yesterday gave the green light for a scaled- down four-storey version, which will include two 40- bed wards, 28 consulting suites, operating facilities, urgent care facilities and testing facilities.

The Cork Medical Clinic has been designed to a standard that, according to Sheehan Medical, would even surpass the new Galway Clinic, which also offers 100 beds as well as 36 consultant suites.

Mr Shine said: “This development will be a big plus for Cork. The hospital will be top-of-the-range and will be an improvement even on the state-of-the-art Galway clinic.”

He said the developers were examining the conditions that were attached to the permission but added the hospital development should take 18 months to complete.

Meanwhile, a multi-million-euro planning application to transform a large site behind a protected quayside building in the heart of Cork city was shot down by planners yesterday.

A spokesman for the planning department said the joint project proposed by Oyster Developments and undertakers Jerh O’Connor for the site between Camden Quay and Coburg Street was refused owing to the project’s overall scale.

Irish Examiner