Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her response. I understand the role Tusla plays and she has highlighted the criteria it will use. The reason I feel passionately about this is because County Kildare is often misunderstood. As Deputy Durkan who is beside me knows, it suffers from a perception of affluence. That means the county's pockets of deprivation suffer from low levels of funding for mental health and youth services. When the Department gets a little more money coming out of the recession, it needs to raise every boat. We do not get many opportunities to redress this.

Kildare has two family resource centres. Other counties which have two family resource centres include Offaly, with a population of 77,000, Cavan, 76,000, Carlow, 50,000, Longford, 40,000, and Leitrim, 32,000. The two resource centres in question will provide the good outcomes which Tusla seeks. They are both in areas of economic disadvantage and need support. Will the Minister support me in this case?

See this speech in context