The Department of Health remains a “stumbling block” to the full opening of a “life-saving” addiction and care facility for homeless people in Dublin, the charity behind it has said.
Catherine Kenny, chief executive of the Dublin Simon Community, speaking on Monday at the official opening of its service at Usher’s Island, noted 25 of the 100 beds remain closed, almost 18 months after it first admitted patients.
The facility saw its first patients in late 2024 with 51 of its 100 beds open, due, it said, to a “funding shortfall”. In July 2025 it received funding to open a further 12 beds, with funding sufficient for another 12 sanctioned late last year.
“We would have hoped to be at full capacity at this point, but certainly we celebrate the fact we have made it this far and will continue to work with our colleagues across the department [of Health],” said Kenny on Monday.
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“The stumbling block has certainly been the commitment from [the Department of] Health to provide the 25 beds,” she said.
The charity received €38 million in capital funding from the Department of Housing under the Capital Assistance Scheme and an annual budget of about €10 million from the Department of Health. The outstanding shortfall is about €3 million annually, said Ms Kenny.
“With 100 beds we can [support] up to 1,600 people annually. With 75 beds [we can help] just over 1,000. With the complexity and the crisis that is homelessness we would like to be helping more people ... It is a life-saving intervention.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin was accompanied by Minister for Housing James Browne and Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy Jennifer Murnane O’Connor at the official opening on Monday. Martin said the service is “a model that can be emulated elsewhere in the country”.
Asked why a quarter of the beds remain closed due to a funding shortfall, he said: “Facilities do take time to get to the 100 per cent. Rarely are they all 100 per cent open ... on day one. There has to be a progression.
“Within any system current revenue is a challenge but we will get there,” he said. “I don’t want to put an exact timeline but certainly we will be in the next budget seeking to do something significant with this facility.”
Labour TD Marie Sherlock, who was at Monday’s opening, said it was “unconscionable that there would be any beds left empty, let alone a whole 25, such is the scale of the crisis and the level of demand for a service like this”.
The Usher’s Island facility provides residential detoxification and recovery services, stabilisation programmes, blood-borne virus stabilisation supports as well as counselling and aftercare services, specifically for homeless people.
Noel Byrne (57), originally from Leixlip, Co Kildare, said the service saved his life. In recovery from alcohol addiction, his “life has just turned around amazing in the last 13 months”.
He had been moving between sleeping in tents and hostels “drinking my brains out because I couldn’t face reality”. In the coming weeks he will move into his “own little [Dublin City Council] apartment”.
He was referred to the Dublin Simon facility by a homelessness social care worker.
Describing himself as having been filled with shame, anxiety and being very depressed at the height of his addiction, he said, he could “easily drink two bottles of vodka and some cans” in a day.
He could have sought help from family but was too ashamed, he said. He would tell them he was “fine”.
“You are lying about your addiction to protect yourself and protect others. Then you’d drink more because of the lying and the shame.”
Since admission to Usher’s Island, he has completed residential detoxification and recovery programmes including a day programme provided by the Merchants Quay Ireland homeless and drug service. Separately, in October he was nominated for a council apartment.
Asked how important the Dublin Simon facility has been to his recovery, he said: “This saved my life, 100 per cent. I don’t know where I would have been if I hadn’t come here.”
