John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the additional funding which the Minister has indicated will be made available next year. The question I am asking is slightly different in that historically we have had 109 family resource centres, approximately 45 of which work from a base of three core staff, while the remainder work with two. The problem is that the additional funding will not be sufficient to allow some of these family resource centres which operate in disadvantaged areas an opportunity to grow. Having met representatives of some of the family resource centres, while one-off grants are always welcome, it is very hard for centres to plan from one year to the next without a sustainable level of core funding. The challenge I am meeting is that a substantial number of centres which have only two core staff and which are operating in areas experiencing significant disadvantage cannot seem to obtain the additional funding required from Tusla to transition from a base of two staff to three. That is the challenge we are facing.

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