Deputy Richard Bruton gave me notice of his intention to raise the matter of the impending closure of Coolock Community Law Centre due to lack of funding. Deputy Bruton has five minutes to present his case and the Minister of State has five minutes to reply.
Adjournment Debate. - Coolock (Dublin) Community Law Centre Funding.
Thank you for the opportunity to raise this matter. It has a long history. During the 12 years I have been in politics this issue has been just below the surface. The Coolock Community Law Centre has been treated outrageously in the past. The Government has never provided regular or reliable funding for it. It has been tossed like a hot potato from one Department to another. One could always observe that Ministers praised it to the high heavens, referring to the quality of the work being done and how it would act as a marvellous model for the rest of the country. The only common feature was that when it came to committing money to the centre to allow it to develop its services and continue in operation, the money was always lacking.
Responsibility for the centre was transferred from the Department of Justice, to the Department of Social Welfare, from there to the Combat Poverty Agency and finally to the Minister for Equality and Law Reform. At no stage has it received a commitment to solid reliable funding so that it could develop its services in the future and give a commitment to its many thousands of clients that they would know from year to year that they could return to the centre and rely on the service being available. It is the piggy in the middle when it comes to Ministers tossing money around. It is not acceptable that this should continue again in 1994, 12 years after this problem was first brought to ministerial attention. Every year that I can recall, funding to this centre was on the basis of giving it a half tank of petrol to run for a full year. Of course it began to chug around July, August and September and it would be scrounging and scraping to continue in operation to the end of the year.
In recent years the centre has had to seriously curtail its services. Last year it had to close its offices to new clients for long periods. It has had to curtail its family law service to dealing only with emergency cases and it has had to curtail its catchment area. This is from a centre that on everybody's admission had been extremely cost effective and even more effective in terms of cost than the official legal aid board.
My understanding is that the Government had committed itself to a charter to deal and co-operate with voluntary agencies. It is ironic that as soon as the ink is dry on the charter, the legal aid boards are getting a commitment of very substantial sums in increased funding while the Coolock Community Law Centre is told it will not receive reliable funding.
I am glad to learn that today the Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare has faxed to the centre her decision that they will continue to receive funding from the Combat Poverty Agency on the basis of last year's funding. That is progress, because the centre was due to close at the end of the month and was preparing to issue notices to all is clients that that would be the case. Let us be honest, that is again a hand to mouth situation. The Minister is aware that £148,000 is required to run the centre, but this year she is providing only £100,000.
The question must be asked whether the Minister for Equality and Law Reform after he met those in the centre in November last year, sought to have such funding included in his Estimates? He indicated during the Estimates debate last year that he saw the logic of his funding this centre, that there should be one source of funding for the Coolock Community Law Centre and for FLAC. Did he seek that funding? Was he refused funding from his Government colleagues? How deep is the commitment to equality and law reform if a centre like the Coolock Community Law Centre has to curtail its services at a time when people are queuing for three hours at the door for the emergency service provided once a week? It has had to turn people away at the end of the night, all because of a lack of serious commitment to funding.
The Deputy's time is exhausted.
I ask the Minister to give more than just a statement that we will have some money available for more hand to mouth funding for the centre for the remainder of the year. Let us see a serious commitment to the service in this centre.
I and my Department fully support the valuable work of Coolock Community Law Centre in providing a communty-based legal advice and information service in the Coolock area. There is no question and there never was any question of funding to the centre being withdrawn or discontinued. The centre received £100,000 in funding from the Combat Poverty Agency in 1993 and will receive the same level of funding in 1994.
I might mention that the centre has, in fact, been funded on a continuous basis by the Combat Povety Agency since 1986. The centre undertakes a wide range of work, including legal work and advice and provision of advice and information on a whole range of entitlements, including social welfare matters. In relation to the legal side, the question arises as to how the centre relates to the civil legal aid scheme. With the setting up of the new Department of Equality and Law Reform and the increased attention by this Department to that scheme, I have been looking at where the Coolock Community Law Centre fits in the overall picture. The centre is somewhat unique in that its work spans the areas of legal advice and social services/social welfare information and advice and in that it receives almost 100 per cent funding from my Department.
What we need to examine is whether the centre should be funded by the Combat Poverty Agency as heretofore or whether it is more appropriate that it should be funded as part of an expanded and integrated civil legal aid service. My colleague, the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Mervyn Taylor, has secured additional funding of £1.8 million in 1994 for the civil legal aid service, bringing the total allocation to £5 million. This will allow a considerable expansion in the scheme in 1994 and future years.
The issue of where Coolock Community Law Centre can best fit in within the context of all these developments is being examined at present but is one that will take some time to resolve. Among the issues being examined are whether a joint funding arrangement might be appropriate, given that in addition to its core legal advice service, the centre provides a social welfare information and advice service.
I see an important role for the centre as part of and working alongside an expanded statutory legal aid service and that it would bring a valuable community-based perspective to bear on that service. In the meantime and pending resolution of the long-term funding issue, I have made arrangements to ensure that the centre continues to be funded by the Combat Poverty Agency at the same level as last year, £100,000. I might make the point that this figure itself represented a sizeable advance on the annual funding of £70,000 made available to the centre by the agency in the period 1990 to 1992.