Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I share her admiration for all who work in the community and voluntary sector, particularly those working under the aegis of Tusla, which provides a range of services, as the Deputy said, right across the board, including family resource centres, home-based supports, supporting early school leavers and much more. The fundamental point is that in the Child and Family Agency Act 2013, under which Tusla was established, it is stipulated very clearly that the funding arrangement for such community and voluntary bodies does not give rise to an employment relationship between a service provider, its employees or agents on the one hand and the agency on the other.

In the last while there have been significant funding increases to the bodies that work with or are funded by Tusla. As the Deputy knows, Tusla is not the employer itself. There are about 121 family resource centres with a core annual budget of €18 million and that has been raised in the context of the national employers group and by trade unions such as SIPTU in numerous representations to the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Tusla provides funding to those bodies and to more than 600 community and voluntary sector bodies to deliver services on its behalf under sections 56 to 59 of the Child and Family Agency Act 2013. About €130 million in Tusla funding has gone to such bodies for a broad range of family supports. Increased sustainability funding of about 4% to those services as part of the Tusla budget comes to an extra €40 million in 2022’s budget for these bodies, which is a significant enough increase. It has been the way since the inception and establishment of Tusla to provide core budgets to these organisations. The annual allocations from Tusla for these budgets have been increased, particularly during the Covid period and in the 2022 budget a significant increase was allocated to Tusla for these community and voluntary bodies that are associated with its agreement for family supports.

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