Café Link, a social enterprise providing meaningful employment and training for adults with intellectual disabilities, has officially opened the doors to its second café in Ballybane.
The new outlet is a training café at SCCUL Enterprises, Castlepark Road, Ballybane, serving breakfast, lunches, cakes and coffees to the local community, operating 8am to 4pm, Monday to Friday. The café will also support event catering delivery.
The community-backed initiative, supported by Galway City Council, the HSE and SCCUL Enterprises, expands supported employment for adults with intellectual disabilities
The opening marks a milestone moment for Café Link, which has been part of Galway life since 1994. Founded by parents of adults with intellectual disabilities who wanted meaningful occupation for their children, the organisation has grown and evolved over three decades.
The café relaunched at 25 Newcastle Road in 2024, reestablishing their catering delivery service, and now employs 16 people with an intellectual disability across its kitchen and café operations.
The Ballybane expansion reflects growing demand for supported employment placements and a clear community need identified through a local area assessment, which found that a welcoming, affordable place to meet informally was the number one priority for the area.
Shane Touhy, General Manager of Café Link said, “It’s an exciting time for Link Galway CLG as we open the doors to our new training café in Ballybane. It feels like we are returning to our roots, delivering a supported training cafe model.”
“The partnership came about as a result of the Ballybane Needs Analysis for the area where the community cited a lack of space to meet friends or family for coffee.”
“Café Link not only offers supported training to people with a disability, gaining a foot into employment, but also meets this important need for Ballybane in our stylish new community cafe.”
The Ballybane café came about through conversations with Joanne Laffey, Enterprise Centre and Bizmentors Manager of SCCUL Enterprises, whose support has been central to making the project possible. SCCUL is providing the premises at no cost to Café Link, enabling the social enterprise to direct resources directly into staffing, training and service delivery.
Joanne Laffey, Enterprise Centre and Bizmentors Manager of SCCUL Enterprises, said, “We’ve recognised for some time that Ballybane was missing a welcoming, informal space where people could meet, chat and connect outside of a class, programme or training environment.”
“That came through very strongly in the Ballybane Needs Analysis undertaken last year, where the community identified a local café as a real priority. We were delighted to partner with Café Link to help bring that vision to life.”
“As a social enterprise ourselves, it was important to us that this remained a genuinely social initiative with community impact at its heart, and Café Link was the obvious partner.”
“Their commitment to supported employment, inclusion and quality aligns so closely with our own values. We hope the community will truly embrace this space, and we look forward to seeing it become a focal point for Ballybane for many years to come.”
Café Link Ballybane is designed to serve the whole community, as a place to get a good coffee, a home-cooked lunch and a friendly welcome, while also providing real, supported employment for people who have been waiting for that opportunity.
The café will function as a training kitchen and supported employment setting, with the same standards and expectations as Café Link’s Newcastle location. All food is homemade and locally sourced, and packaging is compostable.
The project has been made possible through a combination of community-minded partnerships and public funding, including the St Columbus Credit Union, Galway City Council CAIRDE Fund, the HSE Lotto Fund and The Housing Finance Agency via Galway City Council.
