The 1930s-built Christ the King Presentation Convent on Evergreen Road at Turner’s Cross has been empty for years.
Now the existing convent building will be renovated and extended and two new 4-storey residential blocks will be built on the 0.69-hectare site to house women and children on a short-term emergency basis.
The development will be carried out by the Good Shepherd Cork organisation in partnership with Cork City Council.
At this week’s meeting of the city council the elected members voted 28-1 to approve the development.
Cllr Niamh O’Connor described it as “a much-needed facility in the city. At the moment, we have a handful of domestic violence refuge beds in the city. I understand that we have six beds in Cuanlee [refuge] and maybe a handful more across the city.”
“Otherwise, women and children are being sent to homeless services, which is completely inappropriate. This facility will meet their needs and it will provide vital services for women and children going through probably one of the hardest things any one of us could ever go through,” she said.
Cllr Mary Rose Desmond said the Good Shepherds organisation has “a fantastic record for providing for women and families in need over many, many years in Cork City. I think we need more refuges and we also need them outside of the city, I mean these women and families need to not just be stuck in the city centre.”
Cllr Kieran McCarthy also welcomed the development. “That building has been empty for so many years, even decades, it’s great to see a repurposing. There are fantastic refuges in the city in terms of Cuanlee and Edel House and so on, but we need way, way, way more.”
"I regularly get an email from someone who has suffered from domestic violence and they have to leave their social housing but because they've left their social housing, they don't fit in any frame to get more social housing. And so they're just left in limbo or on a waiting list for seven or eight years,” he said.