Transitional care facility plans lodged for Cookstown

A planning application has been submitted for a transitional care facility, to reduce “dependency on the current hospital-centric model of care” on a site in Cookstown Industrial Estate.

Bartra Property Cookstown Limited have applied for permission to demolish existing commercial structures at Unit 21, First Avenue, Cookstown Industrial Estate, to make way for a one-four storey care facility “providing therapy and treatment space and a pharmacy and general practitioners space at ground floor level and 171 bedspaces at first to third floor levels”.

As well as landscaped areas and outdoor amenities, including a “pocket park”, the development will also provide “a coffee dock area, hairdresser, comms rooms, toilets, staff changing facilities, kitchen area, laundry rooms, lobbies/reception areas, admin areas, storage spaces, staff canteen, LV switch room, mains/ sprinkler tank room/ boiler room, multipurpose rooms, dining rooms, meeting and office rooms, sluice rooms, nurses stations” and storage areas.

The Cookstown site is located 750m north of Tallaght University Hospital, where it is “envisaged that patients will be discharged directly to the proposed facility”.

“The step-down nature of a Transitional Care Facility allows patients to avail of convalescent and respite services which bridge the gap between hospital and home care,” the pre-planning report attached to the application stated.

It cites Beaumont Lodge, a transitional care facility located near Beaumont Hospital, as a successful example of such a centre.

“The major benefit from a National Healthcare perspective is the earlier freeing of an acute hospital bed, allowing an increased throughflow of patients with acute needs, within the acute hospital setting,” the report continued.

“The total number of acute bed nights saved by Beaumont Lodge to date amounts to almost 200,000, including over 10,000 beds from Tallaght University Hospital.

“The acute bed savings to Tallaght University Hospital, with an adjacent facility, such as the proposal at Cookstown, would be closer to Beaumont Hospital and Connolly Hospital figures of approximately 63,000 and 62,000 bed nights respectively.”

This is the second planning application by Bartra Property Cookstown Limited for such a care facility on the Cookstown site.

Planning permission was refused in 2024, despite appeals, for a care facility and for a “deck-access apartment development comprising 123 residential units arranged in two blocks” each five to seven storeys in height.

The planning report for the new application stated that “all residential elements have been removed from the proposal”, and it is “solely for the development of a Transitional Care Facility with the aim to deliver enhanced community care, reduce the dependency on the current hospital-centric model of care and supporting capacity building in the community”.

“The proposed Transitional Care Facility will provide essential infrastructure to support an ageing population and is ideally located in a regeneration area, where population is envisioned to increase as the surrounding area is regenerated from its traditional industrial use to new mixed use residential neighbourhoods,” the report stated.

A decision is due from South Dublin County Council’s planning department by April 15, 2026.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme