Decision on Midlands hospice serving Laois deferred by Offaly planners

There is yet another delay in the years long plan to build a hospice serving Laois and three other counties, to be located in Offaly.

The proposed development at Arden Lane in Tullamore is for a 20 bedroom in-patient hospice with daycare facilities, serving Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Longford, who are the only counties in Ireland still without a hospice for patients nearing their end of life. 

Offaly County Council planners are considering an application, but it has been on hold since July when they requested more information.

The plan has been delayed partly over disagreements in Offaly over what site it will go on. Offaly Hospice Foundation had objected to the chosen site in a submission to the planning application.

Laois Hospice Foundation however is in favour of the plan and urges that the hospice "must proceed with urgency"

A decision on the facility had been due on October 13 after the HSE provided ''significant further information,'' to the council on the proposed development at the request of the council.

However the HSE is now being told to publish a new newspaper notice in relation to its application for the Midlands hospice, to be located at Arden Lane in Tullamore.

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Offaly local planning authority stated that a new newspaper notice must be published to tell the public that the extra information is available for them to view and to make submissions on.

Further consideration of the application will be deferred until the Planning Authority has received the notices referred to. If notices have not been received by the Planning Authority by the November 6 2025, the application will be deemed to have been withdrawn.

The hospice was first spoken of some 14 years ago.

It is nine years since Laois Hospice members and supporters were told by the HSE in a public meeting that it would take €9.5million to build, and €2.5 million a year to run with running costs to be paid by the HSE, in 2016.

It is 14 years since Laois woman Sharon Foley highlighted the need for a Level 3 hospice for the county, speaking when she became CEO of the Irish Hospice, in 2011.