Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation Dail Éireann — 2020-09-16 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I did not just open it, as Minister for Health I made sure it happened and I worked with the people involved. The Deputy wrote to me and I read the letter last evening, but the reasons for the closure were not spelled out. I would like to engage with the Deputy on that. The original idea was that it was to be an addiction centre. Traditionally health authorities are against residential-type addiction centres. This centre was originally developed by the Matt Talbot centre which has a non-methadone addiction service. They believe in a different methodology to help people with addiction, and this is meant for very young people in particular, to take them out of very difficult environments to give them a chance and opportunity. I confess that I need to be briefed on the current rationale for its closure. I intend to get the HSE's side of the story. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-09-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:33+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-09-16