*Clare Technology Park.
LONG-AWAITED plans for a dialysis unit in Clare have been lodged.
A proposal for the medical facility on a 0.44 hectare site in the Clare Technology Park on the Gort Rd has been lodged with Clare County Council.
German multinational Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA made the application to the local authority. The company operates and manufactures dialysis products in hospitals while also overseeing inpatient and outpatient care at its facilities. It is the world’s leading provider of products and services for renal diseases
The facility is designed to accommodate up to twenty patients from the Ennis area for three weekly sessions, each lasting four hours at a time. A planning statement submitted by Fresenius states that, “The site is currently vacant having been subject to enabling / site development works as part of the Clare Technology Park creation, and will deliver considerable economic and other benefits when completed”.
The facility is planned as a single storey building to be constructed on a vacant site measuring 0.44 hectares. Construction would also involve the addition of a new vehicular and pedestrian access point with parking and hard landscaping required at the site.
The planning application also includes a letter written by Dr. Liam Casserly the Lead Clinical Nephrologist at UHL. Dr. Casserly stated that the issue was of “great importance” and that a dialysis facility in Ennis would “reduce the transport time immensely for many of the patients who travel from West Clare to Limerick thrice weekly”.
Dr Casserly stressed the importance of the facility to the people of Clare, writing that “unfortunately for many, they may not see the opening of the unit and avail of the shorter time they have to spend travelling to and from dialysis. However the hope is that the future will bring light to many of the patients in County Clare and even North County Limerick which would reduce the burden of their disease significantly”.
The new unit could serve as a massive boost for the county as a dialysis unit is one of the most hotly contested issues amongst local councillors. In March, Cllr. Tommy Guilfoyle (SF) raised the issue at a sitting of Ennis Municipal District.
The Clarecastle based councillor stated that 190 people “need this critically vital service, some of whom have to travel two and a half to three hours multiple times a week to access this vital service”. He maintained elected representatives needed to do what they could “to make the lives of the people of Clare better”.
Currently, people in the county must travel to hospitals in either Galway or Limerick to assist with their dialysis needs. Demand for these services is continually on the rise in Ireland due to the aging population.
Clare County Council is due to make a decision on the development by the 24th of June 2025.
The HSE stated earlier this year that a satellite haemodialysis unit would be up and running in Ennis by June 2026. A start date of 2025 was envisaged as per correspondence last summer from UL Hospitals Group after a renal care provider was identified in May 2024.
