A FEASIBILITY STUDY looking at where to locate Ireland’s first mother and baby psychiatric unit has not yet concluded more than two years after it commenced.

The unit was first recommended in 2017, but records obtained by The Journal Investigates show that progress on the project remains slow, even as government ministers push for updates.

A mother and baby unit is a specialist inpatient psychiatric unit which would allow women experiencing severe mental health challenges to stay with their infant children.

The site of the unit at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin has been known for many years, and yet a location has not yet been determined despite multiple feasibility studies looking at where to place it in the grounds of the hospital.

The Journal Investigates also understands that a current proposal under review would split the unit into two separate locations on the hospital grounds, though this is facing pushback from Department of Health officials.

Between 2020 and 2024, there were 80 admissions to psychiatric hospitals in Ireland where the primary diagnosis was related to pregnancy, according to figures obtained by our team from the National Psychiatric Inpatient Reporting System.

While each admission does not necessarily correlate to individual people, as one person may have multiple admissions, the data highlights the desperate need for the long-promised mother and baby psychiatric unit.

A letter seen by our team from Minister of State Mary Butler TD to HSE chief executive Anne O’Connor earlier this year calls for “the urgent need to progress the development” of the unit.

The minister also expressed concern with the length of time the “feasibility processes have been taking”.

The Journal Investigates spoke with almost 40 women across the country who had experienced mental health challenges related to their pregnancy.

Many of these women expressed difficulty in accessing care from Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Services (SPMHS), which are linked to maternity hospitals.

Others said that the lack of a mother and baby psychiatric unit on the island of Ireland made them fearful of being separated from their baby had their mental health deteriorated to the point of needing to be admitted.

Campaigners say that the lack of a mother and baby unit is a critical piece and missing link of mental health and maternity care infrastructure, adding that some women may be deterred from seeking care because they do not want to be separated from their baby.

Butler told The Journal Investigates that “the resources are available to complete this project” but that there are “ongoing deliberations between the HSE and the hospital about the best location for the unit on the campus”.

A spokesperson for the HSE told our team that “the provision of new infrastructure to accommodate a proposed mother and baby unit at St Vincent’s University Hospital is currently being examined.”

• This article is part of a year-long exploration by The Journal Investigates into the issues that impact the safety of women in Ireland today. Over the course of four topics, we listen to women’s experiences, investigate the challenges they face, and explore potential solutions to improve outcomes across women’s health, safety in public, and access to justice and advancement.

Lack of unit contributing to fear

Some of the women who spoke to our team were fearful of being admitted to a psychiatric unit where they would be separated from their baby. All of their names have been changed to protect their identity.

Sophie* told The Journal Investigates that after the birth of her baby, she experienced postpartum psychosis.

This is much rarer than perinatal depression, affecting approximately 1–2 women per 1,000 births and requires an urgent psychiatric assessment. Symptoms can include hallucinations, delusions and thought disorder.

Sophie said that she’d never heard of the condition before and that before her baby’s birth, she hadn’t experienced any mental health difficulties. She added:

There were no warning signs during my pregnancy, which made the onset even more unexpected. It was an incredibly frightening experience for me.

She said the care she received was excellent throughout but admits how different her experience could have been had she required inpatient treatment and been separated from her baby.

“Had I been admitted without him, I feel my recovery would have been much longer and far more difficult,” Sophie said.

Another woman, Anna*, said that hospital admission was discussed as an option “because there were concerns for both my safety and my baby’s”.

But she was exclusively breastfeeding at the time, and there was no option for her baby to stay with her. She said:

At one of the most vulnerable times in a mother’s life, separating her from her baby feels like the wrong approach.

The lack of adequate places can also put pressure on the wider family as care can fall on them.

“My husband had to take months off work to care of me and our children as I was unable to look after myself, or anyone else,” Una* told our team.

She said there wasn’t an inpatient bed available for her when she needed it and nowhere where she could have brought her son.

Reflecting on her feelings at the time, she said “I felt such guilt that I was a burden to my family.”

Slow progress with multiple studies

Over two years have passed since the latest feasibility study began identifying a location within the St Vincent’s University Hospital campus.

Back in 2021, Amir Niazi, HSE National Clinical Adviser and Group Lead for Mental Health, told The Journal that the unit would “definitely” be in place by 2026.

It was also later slated for completion by the end of 2024, with Dr Niazi saying in 2022 that it was the only piece left in the perinatal model of care.

But records obtained by our team show that a location within St Vincent’s has not yet been identified, with a feasibility study that commenced in 2024 still underway.

“The outcome of the study will form the basis for the next key decisions on the project,” a briefing note from 2024 on the project concludes.

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This same sentence also appears in briefing notes obtained by our team throughout 2025, demonstrating how slow progress has been.

A letter sent to HSE chief executive Anne O’Connor from Minister of State Mary Butler TD earlier this year and seen by our team outlines the “urgent need” for progress.

Butler wrote that she and the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD, “expect to see the development of the [unit] achieved as soon as possible”.

“I am concerned by the length of time the feasibility processes have been taking,” she added, “and we now need a final decision as to the location of the unit”.

The Journal Investigates understands that this is not the first feasibility study to have taken place over the years since the mother and baby unit was originally promised in 2017.

A spokesperson for the HSE told The Journal Investigates that a previous feasibility study looked at extending part of the existing hospital to accommodate the mother and baby unit, but that “this work unfortunately identified that the proposed extension was not feasible.”

Alternative options “continue to be explored” a spokesperson added. 

Plans for a second mother and baby unit on the St Joseph’s Hospital campus in Limerick are also in their infancy, with it included in the Department of Health’s mental health capital projects earlier this year.

Corrinne Hasson, executive director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, told The Journal Investigates that “every day that passes without a mother and baby unit in Ireland is a day that postpartum women are failed”.

Despite the establishment of a unit previously being included in the last Programme for Government, as well as the current one, “little tangible progress remains to be seen”, she added.

Hasson called on the government ahead of the next budget to “provide the resources and direction needed” to finally deliver on their promise.

Butler told The Journal Investigates that she was “determined to progress the development of a perinatal mother and baby unit”.

She added that she would be meeting with the HSE to “highlight the need to get this unit ‘shovel-ready’ and built”.

St Vincent's University Hospital, the proposed site of the mother and baby unit since 2017. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Mother and baby unit ‘the bare minimum’

Laura Guckian, a maternal mental health advocate, told The Journal Investigates that while Ireland’s lack of a mother and baby unit is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, “there’s no single intervention that will solve our maternal mental health crisis”.

“From the moment I became a mum, I just struggled with my mental health,” she said, adding that she received “no meaningful support” from her multiple GPs, public health nurses and mental health charity helplines.

She said that when her baby was 10-months-old, she checked herself into a private psychiatric hospital in Dublin.

But where her experience differs from others is that she didn’t want to bring her baby with her to the hospital.

“I was deeply, deeply struggling. I was exhausted,” she said, adding that she felt that if she was going to get better, she needed a break from being a mother.

Guckian added that she believes Ireland needs a mother and baby unit, but said there seems to be a view that once a unit is achieved, “then our job is done”.

This, she said, is where there is a lost opportunity to have a conversation around other aspects of maternal mental health.

“Mother and baby units are the absolute bare minimum,” so that women who want to bring their babies with them have that option, but in her view, supporting maternal mental health should go beyond the medical setting. She added:

We need to look at policies that make motherhood more manageable.

This might involve more flexible workplace policies, equal and better paternity leave, affordable childcare and better education on parenthood.

She said mother and baby units are important to support a mother in a crisis, but in addition, there is a need to reduce “the number of mothers who need that crisis support”.

Guckian said that part of getting to that point means investing in more structured community supports for mothers as well as challenging the narrative sometimes portrayed in the media and online of ‘perfect mothers’.

This, she said, can present a view to others who might be struggling that they are not good enough, or that they’re a ‘bad mother’.

She said that putting a more balanced view of what motherhood is actually like out there is as important as making sure a mother and baby unit gets built.

Guckian said, “when someone talks about mother and baby units, I’m like, yes, we need them, but if we’re not looking at the rest of it, there is no point.”

“I think the mother and baby unit conversation [has] become fixated on the treatment, which is absolutely needed, but if we’re not looking at the prevention, it’s a lost opportunity.”

*Names have been changed.

This article is part of a project supported by the News Reporting Scheme.

The Journal Investigates

Reporter: Conor O’Carroll • Editor: Noel Baker • Social Media: Cliodhna Travers • Main Image Design: Lorcan O’Reilly