Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the partial funding to the centre from the Department of Education and Skills. The education and training board has been very supportive of the centre and has allocated teaching hours. The Minister of State knows the value of the work done in the centre. It is not just about aiming to pass the leaving certificate or junior certificate; the centre works on socialisation skills as the students who attend the centres come from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds and have various skills deficits in terms of literacy and numeracy. The majority have dropped out of mainstream education and the centres provide an alternative, hope and opportunity for students between 12 and 18 years of age to get back into education and achieve an academic examination result, such as the junior certificate or the leaving certificate.

The response of the Minister of State was that under current budgetary pressures of the Department no further funding will be made available and that he has met representatives of the Life Centre to see the remedies that can come to pass with the people operating the centre and, more importantly, the students attending it. They are in the middle of studying for the junior certificate or leaving certificate. What remedies can be put in place? I do not know what the remedies will be or what the nature of the discussions can be, but we both know that the other centres doing the same type of work are at saturation point. If the Life Centre closes, it is not simply a case of transferring those 40 students into other centres, such as St. Kevin's, because they are all at saturation point and cannot take any more students. The stark reality is that the centre either closes, with fewer opportunities for a smaller number of people, or somehow funding is made available or an initiative is put in place by the Department, in conjunction with the Department of Justice and Equality, to come up with a remedy to keep the centre open.

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