Tipperary homeless service moves forward as council confirms property purchase
Tipperary County Council has agreed the purchase of a building that will be converted into a new emergency homeless service for the west of the county.
The local authority have been working on setting up a 9-9 service – a form of emergency accommodation that offers people who are homeless a bed from 9pm to 9am – in Tipperary town.
At the council’s budget meeting, Fianna Fáil councillor Siobhán Ambrose sought an update on the project, and how long it would be before it was open.
"For the new 9-9 in Tipperary town, I hope that when we’re applying for it, we’re also applying for a day service, because there was a delay from the department with the day service in Clonmel,” Cllr Ambrose said.
Jonathon Cooney, the council’s director of services for housing, confirmed that the local authority had gone sale agreed on a property in Tipperary town, but it will be a number of months before the property is ready.
"Last year we said we were looking at setting up a 9-9 in Tipperary town, and that was one of our targets, and an Approved Housing Body (AHB), working in conjunction with ourselves in the council, have gone sale agreed on a property in Tipperary town,” councillors were told.
"It’ll be a slightly different model from usual 9-9s in different places, there’s a number of different areas in the homeless supports that we can provide, and a 9-9 is for a particular cohort, and not every town has the same issues, or needs a 9-9, there’s a number of different measures that can go across all the towns in Tipperary,” he explained.
An issue was found in Tipperary town by the numbers of people from the town presenting at the 9-9 service in Clonmel for help.
"We identified an issue in Tipperary town because there was a number of people travelling from Tipperary town to the 9-9 in Clonmel because they needed that additional support,” Mr Cooney added.
“So we have identified a property, but it will be 12 months before that property will be ready to be occupied, it needs a lot of capital works to be done to it,” he said.
As part of the budget for 2026, Tipperary County Council has allocated €3.1million for homeless services, with the funding for the new 9-9 in Tipperary town coming out of a separate funding stream.
"The capital works won’t come out of the €3.1million, that will be a separate funding source through central Government,” Mr Cooney added.