Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 3 December 2021
5. Deputy Marian Harkin asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth his plans to expand the family resource centre network; and if he will prioritise Manorhamilton, Country Leitrim, as a location for a family resource centre. [59681/21]
View answerThere are two family resource centres in Carrick-on-Shannon and Mohill in south Leitrim. I have been to both centres and was very impressed by the caring and inclusive way they respond to the needs of families in their communities. However, in the entire north of County Leitrim, a distance of 62 km from Drumshanbo to Tullaghan, families have no access to the supports and resources provided by family life centres. These centres are badly needed and I ask the Minister to ring-fence funding for such a centre in Manorhamilton.
Tusla administers the family resource centre programme, which provides funding support to 121 centres across the country. My Department allocates core funding for the programme. Since 2019 we have provided an additional €1.5 million to this important service and funding for 2021 amounted to €18 million.
My Department also secured funding for Tusla to support existing family resource centres, primarily with expenses relating to equipment and premises, through the Dormant Accounts Fund for 2020 and 2021. Tusla is currently arranging to pay over €650,000 to relevant centres from 2021 dormant accounts funding.
Tusla provided once-off additional supports during 2021 to many of its community and voluntary sector bodies, including family resource centres, to assist them in responding to Covid challenges. As the Deputy mentioned, Tusla works with community-based family support centres and organisations and the two existing family resource centres in Carrick-on-Shannon and Mohill, to meet the needs of vulnerable children, families and communities.
My Department and Tusla have formed a family support subgroup to better understand the demand in this sector and to understand demand for family resource centres. The output from this group is intended to be an integrated model of family support that expounds the national service delivery framework and provides clarity to policymakers, practitioners and service users across the continuum of need. In carrying out this work it will look at existing provision of family support and resource allocation to family support.
In budget 2022, Tusla has been allocated €899 million, which is an increase of €41 million. The specific amount to be used in 2022 for its various services, including family resource centres, has not yet been finalised. The matter will be addressed in the agency's business plan that will be submitted to my Department in the coming weeks. I have issued my performance statement to Tusla outlining the overall performance parameters for Tusla. In response to this, Tusla will prepare its annual business plan for 2022 and within that it will outline its provision of support for family resource centres.
I thank the Minister. He said that the budget is not finalised yet. Both the Minister and I know that one of the most important aspects of family resource centres is that they are rooted in their communities, involve community participation and respond to the specific needs of families, especially in disadvantaged areas across the country. While the two centres in south Leitrim do really good work they are too far away and their focus is, rightly, on their communities. There are four electoral areas in County Sligo and each one of them has a family resource centre. There are three electoral areas in County Leitrim but only two of them have a family resource centre. In north Leitrim, over a distance of 62 km from Drumshanbo to Tullaghan, there is no family resource centre so a centre is needed on the basis of geography, on the basis of responding to the needs of families and supporting families so that they can access these services.
I agree with the Deputy on the importance of family resource centres and how they respond to particular needs. I have visited a number, even in my own constituency, and they are quite different in terms of what they address because they respond to the immediate community need. The work being done by Tusla at the moment, in terms of the family subgroup between my Department and Tusla, looks at the overall supports provided to families across the country. Often Tusla provides family supports in an area without there necessarily being a resource centre. The subgroup will give the full understanding of the range of services that are available and the range of supports that can be put in place, ensuring the geographical gaps in services provided, described by the Deputy in north Leitrim and I see them in my constituency as well, can be addressed and filled.
The Minister has given me a positive but a very general answer. He has said that sometimes Tusla provides supports without family support centres. The Minister and I know that a family support centre provides holistic resources and supports to families within a geographical area, which is hugely important. Sometimes disadvantage can be harder to see in rural areas. It is more dispersed and because of that it is less visible. However, we still have many families on low incomes, an ageing population and small farm holdings. We also have the same pattern of alcohol and drug misuse, abuse and addiction as everywhere else in the country. The families in the very significant part of County Leitrim that I have referred to need these services. I ask the Minister, in his capacity, to work with Tusla to ensure that families in that area can get the kind of services that are available all around them in other counties.
The Deputy is right that I gave a general answer. As she knows, the determination on the allocation of family resource centres is a matter for Tusla. It is important, in my role as Minister, to give the agency the discretion in that.
I understand what the Deputy is saying that disadvantage is present in all urban and rural communities across the country. I come from a very urban constituency and I know that the needs in a rural constituency are different but it does not mean that they cannot become as extreme.
As I said, work is being undertaken currently to get a wider understanding of what family support services are available across the country and how they can be deployed more effectively to support need, be it in an urban or rural setting. That is really important. It is also really important that the rural element of that shines through. I ask that the Deputy writes to me on this particular issue and I will convey it to Tusla so that we can advance the provision of these supports.
