Safe zones to be set up in Dublin city centre, Dublin's Night Mayor says

Ellen O'Donoghue

Semi-permanent welfare areas, where people can get help on nights out, are to be established in Dublin city centre by the end of the year.

The establishment of such areas comes as part of efforts by the capital's new night-time economy advisor, Ray O'Donoghue, to improve the late-night offering.

Mr O'Donoghue told Newstalk that discussions were also underway to run more late-night Luas services throughout the year.

He said the safe zones, that were piloted on Culture Night, are to be rolled out.

"Basically, an area where people if they are, maybe have had had too much to drink, might have had a bad night out or something, but they’ve a safe environment. Somewhere they can go there’s a medic, security and welfare officers there," Mr O'Donoghue said.

He also said that talks are underway about running more Luas services into the early hours, and that discussions with transport bosses about adding more late-night trams will be ramped up in the New Year;

"It is something that we’re having conversations around, and the idea would be to potentially look at a calender of events a calander of nights throughout the year, so it may not be 50 weekends of the year it may be 10 or 20 weekends, or something along those lines," he told Newstalk.