Vol. 466 No. 1
97 Mr. F. Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Equality and Law Reform when funding will be available to the Marriage Counselling Service for its Teen Between counselling service; the total amount allocated to youth counselling in marriage breakdown in 1996; and the names of the organisations which are supplying this service and have applied for funding. [11036/96]
A sum of £900,000 has been allocated in 1996 to my Department to fund the scheme of grants to voluntary organisations engaged in the provision of marriage guidance and marriage counselling services, and in the provision of counselling services to children whose parents have separated. There is no separate allocation for children's counselling. As in previous years, payments under the scheme will be made in three instalments to those organisations which meet the criteria governing the scheme.
Applications for assistance under the scheme in 1996 were received from 73 organisations. Twenty-five of these organisations are seeking grants, inter alia, for providing child counselling services. The names of the latter organisations, which include Marriage Counselling Service Limited, are set out in a tabular statement which I propose to have circulated in the Official Report.
Following a preliminary examination of the completed application forms furnished to my Department, payment of a first instalment of the 1996 grant to counselling organisations was made recently to 68 organisations. The two further instalments will be paid in August and November 1996 respectively. A final determination on the distribution of the grant in 1996, however, must await a more detailed scrutiny of the forms and the furnishing by the respective organisations of any clarification or additional information required by my Department. For obvious reasons a decision on the total grant payable to any one organisation cannot be made in isolation from a decision on the total grant payable in respect of all other applicant organisations.
The first instalment payments that have been made to date in 1996 include a payment made to Marriage Counselling Service Limited. The amount it received on this occasion, which contains an element of grant for its Teen Between counselling service, is greater than the amount paid as a first instalment in 1995.
Organisations Requesting Child Counselling Grant in 1996
Clanwilliam Institute, 18 Clanwilliam Terrace, Dublin 2.
