The HSE has confirmed that it has been issued with a notice of proposal to cancel the registration of one of its centres at the Áras Attracta residential care centre in Swinford, Co Mayo.

Áras Attracta is a residential care centre for adults with intellectual disabilities, which is run by the HSE. The notice was issued by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) in relation to Centre 2 at the facility, following two unannounced inspections which were carried out last month.

Centre 2 houses five bungalows, including one that was featured in a controversial episode of RTE's Prime Time last year. The programme, Inside Bungalow Three, showed residents being physically abused, shouted at, force fed and humiliated.

In these latest inspections, HIQA found issues relating to staffing, management and governance and has given the HSE 28 days to respond.

In a statement, the HSE said that it was ‘disappointed considering the significant work and programme of change which is underway at the centre and the favourable reports from HIQA following inspection in April this year'.

It insisted that it is ‘strongly committed to addressing the issues raised, particularly in relation to staffing and governance'.

It said that additional staff have been recruited and in the last two weeks, a further 25 posts have been approved ‘to allow us to commission two vacant bungalows'. This will reduce the number of people in some of the existing centres.

The HSE also said that a new director of services has taken up duty and successful candidates have been identified for three senior clinical positions.

"This will strengthen governance and oversight at Centres 1, 2 and 3 and in addition, will drive the services further into the modern day approach to such care and support," it noted.

It acknowledged that while change is happening, ‘the type of change required cannot happen overnight and we expect challenges along the way'.

"The HSE in its written response to HIQA will outline the steps that will be taken to address the issue of registration," it added.