I would like to thank the office of the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this urgent matter, urgent because the position — as the Minister for Social Welfare is aware — is that Coolock Community Law Centre is facing financial extinction in mid-November. The last instalment paid to them in October will have been used up completely and the law centre will have no option but to close. The Minister, being in the same constituency in which the centre is located, will be aware that the centre for some weeks now has been obliged to take on no new work or to make any new commitment to the people of the area because of the uncertainty of their future. This is a crucially important point for the law centre.
Since it was founded in 1975 it has been subjected to the most irregular, disparate and difficult treatment regarding funding. Responsibility for funding has been moved to various agencies and sources and they have wrung a financial commitment from Government time and again simply by reason of agitation, demonstration and by raising a public outcry. Frankly, that is not the way Coolock Community Law Centre should be treated. On the last occasion on which they got a commitment from the Department of Social Welfare they were informed that the Minister would commission a report of evaluation, depending on the outcome of the report, a definite decision regarding future funding would be made. That report, commissioned by the Combat Poverty Agency, the author of which is Brian Dillon, has been with the Minister and his officials for a number of months. It praises the law centre and its functions. I will quote from its conclusions — time does not allow for any longer extracts from the report — as follows:
The Irish Civil Legal Aid Scheme was introduced in 1980 ten years after the Pringle Committee had argued for a comprehensive scheme of Civil Legal Aid. The scheme fell far short of what the Pringle Report had proposed and even further short of the urgent needs identified by those working in the area in a voluntary capacity.
Specifically in relation to the Coolock Law Centre the report states:
The Coolock Law Centre has attempted to address the problems associated with equality under the law in the community. As such it is unique and this in itself throws up problems for evaluation....
The very high level of demand and activity over a period of 12 years is in some ways a measure of need for the service.
There is no doubt Coolock Law Centre is needed. It is unique and it provides a crucial service to the Dublin north-east area in general.
Clearly, the commitment given to the Coolock Law Centre and the people in the area following on that evaluation report must be stood by and a decision made at Government level to establish the Coolock Law Centre on a permanent ongoing funded basis. It must now be recognised as indispensable and everything must be done by the Minister and the Government to ensure that the centre gets a budget on which it can rely, on a yearly basis, without having to resort to this kind of activity, without mobilising the community to agitate, without going to public representatives to raise the issue in the Dáil and without troubling the Minister in his office on a yearly basis to say: "We are facing bankruptcy yet again; can you help us out?"
The sum of £118,000 on a yearly basis represents very good value for money. It will allow them to employ, in the first instance, one extra solicitor. When last I raised this matter with the Minister in the House — again on the Adjournment debate and in circumstances similar to what we have today — on 10 February 1988, I indicated then the urgent need for the appointment of a new solicitor but funding was not forthcoming to allow for that. I am now saying that any budgetary commitment which must be made must be such as to allow for the recruitment of such an officer.
It was drawn to my attention recently, at a meeting with the staff in the Coolock Law Centre, that the one solicitor who operates there, works on a schedule which I do not believe is equalled by any practitioner in private practice in terms of work or case load undertaken. It was indicated that she spends nine out of ten days in court on her feet working. She dealt with 72 cases in court during a period of six weeks. On one day in that period she was obliged to deal with five cases running simultaneously in three different courts. An average of eight to ten new cases a week can be expected to be taken on when the centre is operating at full capacity. That level of activity simply cannot be sustained for much longer.
The centre and the people in the area and all of us who refer — as the Minister does — people to the centre for help must have the highest regard for the officers, Roisín Connolly, Dave Ellis and Elizabeth Egan. They do a colossal job but must be assisted. First, they must now get a firm commitment from the Government that they will be funded on a permanent basis for the future and that it will be part of the budget of a departmental Estimate in this House. Secondly, the budget modest as it is, must be of a minimum to allow for the expansion of staff to carry, in the small way it is asked, the huge workload of the centre.
I do not want the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Woods, to hop around on this matter. I know he has a concern for the law centre. At a recent meeting it was indicated — and it took me by surprise — that the Combat Poverty Agency in a covering letter to the report recommended something that was not in the report: that is, that the Department of Justice should be the Department to carry responsibility for the centre. I have no concern one way or the other: be it the Department of Social Welfare, because it is a community-based facility, or the Department of Justice, because it is providing a legal service. A decision must be made today, or very shortly, as to which Department take responsibility. I know the Minister says that the letter from the Combat Poverty Agency suggested the Department of Justice and, on another occasion, suggested the Department of Justice and the Department of Social Welfare combined because of the dual function of the law centre as a community-based unit. Now, I understand that a preference might be directed more towards the Department of Justice. If that is the view why would the Minister for Justice not hear me this evening? If not, I urge the Minister for Social Welfare to make urgent representations, and perhaps secure a meeting with the Minister for Justice at an early date, for Coolock Community Law Centre so that the central issue is determined as to who will take responsibility in their Estimate to fund on a permanent basis the Coolock Community Law Centre, which is an indispensable crucial service provided for the people of Dublin north-east.
