James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There has been much comment on this issue over the past 24 hours and much of it ill-informed. This Government is delivering the most comprehensive reform of policy and provision for children, young people and families in the history of the State and our commitment to continuing that work remains strong and resolute. Indeed, I must make my apologies to the House as I was delayed because I was in the other House, the Seanad, dealing with a new Bill which will end the practice of placing children and people under 18 years of age in adult prisons, either for detention or on remand. The reform continues. This Government is committed to strengthening and developing our child care, protection and welfare services. The Government has provided Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, with significant additional funding in 2015 to enable it deliver on its mandate, as Deputy McGrath has rightly pointed out.

Tusla has a total budget of €643 million in 2015, made up of €631 million in current funding and €12 million in capital. This increase of €34 million is a 5.3% increase on funding for the agency in 2014. This level of funding demonstrates clearly that despite the overall national budgetary constraints, this Government is strongly supporting the delivery of critically important reforms needed to support Ireland's children and families. Of course, this comes on the back of the worst recession this country has ever experienced. This additional funding will help drive key priorities in the reform of children and family services. Despite the increase in funding, Tusla has calculated that it still needs to make significant savings in 2015 and the announcement of a funding reduction to ACCORD is but one of a wide range of funding change announcements by Tusla over the past days. It should be remembered that Tusla funds in the region of 700 organisations around the country.

The establishment of Tusla has presented an opportunity to explore new approaches to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged children and families. Through a comprehensive scoping exercise across all services, Tusla has begun the process of identifying where the resources can be used to best effect and in a manner consistent with its mandate. Tusla is undertaking a restructuring of its existing funding allocation to ensure priority is given to counselling services that best support and promote the development, welfare and protection of children and effective functioning of families.

ACCORD provides a range of services in a number of areas. It provides marriage and relationship counselling services for people who are experiencing difficulties in their relationships. Quite separately, it provides marriage preparation courses for people who are getting married in the Catholic Church. In 2014, ACCORD received €1.992 million in core funding from Tusla and in 2015 it will receive funding in excess of €1.6 million.

Tusla will spend approximately €6 million this year on counselling services, including the provision of significant funding to ACCORD, which amounts to more than a quarter of the available funding. Tusla has determined that marriage preparation courses, which are paid for by couples, does not form part of its core mission. I am informed by Tusla that it does not provide funding to any other dedicated marriage preparation courses. Tusla is targeting available funding at its core mission, which is supporting and promoting the development, welfare and protection of children and the effective functioning of families.

The chief executive of Tusla, Mr. Gordon Jeyes, has made clear that the funding decisions of his executive, which were approved by the Tusla board, were in no way related to the marriage equality referendum. Anyone who suggests that the reduction in funding for ACCORD is in any way related to the referendum should remember that other organisations who support a Yes vote in the referendum have been the subject of reductions as well. I would draw the attention of Deputies to a letter from the chief executive of Barnardos in today's edition of The Irish Times.

At all times, Tusla has endeavoured to ensure, where funding adjustments are being applied, that they will not affect front-line services, overlap of services will be reduced, backroom functions will be streamlined and that the services received will be of the utmost quality as outlined in Tusla's business plan for 2015. I want to assure the House that, in furtherance of Government policy for child and family services, Tusla is working with service providers on managing their budgets and the delivery of services to children and families across the country.

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