Minister visits new women’s refuge site

Cope Galway are hoping to know by May what State funding they will receive to convert the former Magdalene Laundry into a new women’s refuge.

The Minister of State for Housing Jan O’Sullivan visited the site to be donated by the Sisters of Mercy last Thursday to see for herself the scope of the €2.5m project.

Last year the current domestic violence refuge at Woodquay was unable to accommodate 215 women and their 359 children due to lack of space. The building offers ‘bedsit’ style accommodation, forcing families to live in one large room without access to basic cooking facilities during their stay. After years of scouting for bigger city centre premises – which would also meet their key security criteria – the charity approached the Sisters of Mercy about the convent on Forster Street where a Magdalene Laundry closed in 1984. The Order agreed to donate the property on a 99-year lease to facilitate a refuge which will nearly double the capacity of women and children that can be accommodated.

In the Interim plans for the refuge, there are five one-bedroom self-contained apartments and four two-bedroom apartments on the site, with indoor and outdoor play facilities for children and outreach services.

Cope Galway CEO Jacqui Horan said the next hurdle for the project is a decision by the Department of the Environment on capital assistance funding.

“We’re hoping for an announcement within the next two months. After we know the level of assistance, we will then look to other avenues of funding and we will be asking the public to help us,” she explained.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.