Taoiseach urged to fully fund ‘gamechanger’ homeless centre in Dublin

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

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been urged to fully fund a homeless centre in Dublin by allocating it an extra €3m in the upcoming budget.

The facility at Usher’s Island houses people who are homeless who have addictions and other healthcare needs.

The Dublin Simon Community, which runs the facility at Usher’s Island, has argued that at full capacity it can “save up to 36,500 inpatient bed days each year” through reduced hospital admissions and better health outcomes.

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

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

The project cost €38m to develop, and costs €10.5m a year to deliver 75 beds at the facility. An extra 25 beds would cost €3m.

While visiting the facility in February, Mr Martin said “it takes time” to fully open a healthcare facility and said a year and a half was “not an eternity”, as it first began taking in people in October 2024.

He said he would be “seeking to do something significant” with the facility in Budget 2027.

The HSE is carrying out a review of the service and its facility in 2026, due to be completed this year, which will form part of a business case for expanding the Usher’s Island facility.

Dublin Simon Community chief executive Catherine Kenny has now written to the Taoiseach to ask for “full operational funding” for the Health and Addiction Care Facility (HACF) at Usher’s Island in Budget 2027.

She said it was “essential” that the review informs the implementation of the service “rather than delay the funding required to fully realise the Government’s original ambition”.

“The need for the facility has never been clearer.

“People experiencing long-term homelessness often present with a combination of severe physical illness, addiction and mental ill-health that cannot be effectively addressed within standard emergency accommodation.” 

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The letter said that without its integrated healthcare and addiction treatment, people will become “trapped in repeated cycles” of hospital admission, detoxification, relapse and homelessness.

This places “significant pressure” on hospitals, emergency departments, and ambulance services, it said.

“Even while operating below capacity, the facility is already demonstrating its value.

“We therefore respectfully ask that, once the HSE review concludes later this year, your department advocates strongly during the Budget 2027 process for the provision of the full annual operational funding required to bring all 100 beds into service."

The Department of the Taoiseach has been contacted for comment.