Expect ‘significant’ investment in homeless centre in Budget 2027 – Taoiseach

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, Press Association

A “significant” investment will be made into a first-of-its-kind homeless centre in Dublin city as part of Budget 2027, the Taoiseach has said.

Dublin Simon Community’s centre at Usher’s Island houses people who are homeless who have addictions and other healthcare needs.

The facility offers services such as detox, step-up and step-down intermediate care, and stabilisation treatment.

Internationally this is a gamechanger

Dublin Simon Community chief executive Catherine Kenny said the multiple services available provide a “robust” basis to people for their recovery, which can take up to two years.

“Internationally this is a gamechanger, and cities across Europe could benefit from this tailored response,” she said, adding that this put Dublin ahead in its response to homelessness.

The centre has funding to operate 75 beds, which allows them to serve more than 1,000 people a year, but it has the capacity for 100 beds that would allow them to see up to 1,600 people a year.

It will cost more than €3 million to fund the extra 25 beds, Dublin Simon Community has said.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that the project cost €38 million to develop, and costs €10.5 million a year to deliver 75 beds at the facility.

“That’s the largest ever investment in healthcare services for people who are homeless,” he said during a speech to launch the facility on Monday.

“But obviously there’s capacity here for 100, I’m not announcing anything here, but I’m just saying to the ministers, we’re going to have to… make this a 100-bed facility.”

Asked by the media about the delay in opening the remaining 25 beds, as it first began taking in people in October 2024, Martin said “it takes time” to fully open a healthcare facility and said a year and a half was “not an eternity”.

He would not commit to a timeline on when the final 25 beds would be funded, but said he would look to do something “significant” in Budget 2027, which will be announced in the autumn.

“I don’t want to put an exact timeline on it, but I certainly will be in the next budget seeking to do something significant with this facility,” he told reporters.

He said that the health service budget has been “expanding enormously” and there are “huge demands” across healthcare services, but said this one was “a key one”.

“I would hope, certainly, in the next budget, we could make a very significant step in terms of, again, more beds in this facility.”