Ms Trish Murphy:

It should be anything that would guarantee ongoing funding. If we are going to get extra counsellors, we need to have them for years. There is no point in having them for one year only and not being sure if we will be able to provide them the following year, which is sort of the case at present. If it was top-sliced and guaranteed, it would allow for planning, prevention and many of the suggestions we have about implementing peer programmes and other programmes that we could use. At present, people can only be employed for one year with the hope they can be employed again, but many people get other jobs because they are in such demand, so we have to train in new people. It is really undermining the work. Yes, of course, I think it should be top-sliced.