Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I raise the issue of funding for the Life Centre in Sunday's Well in Cork city. It is one of four such centres in Ireland. There is one in Belfast, two in Dublin and the one in the heart of the north side of Cork city. I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Ciarán Cannon, is familiar with the centre's work. The Department of Education and Skills is certainly familiar with it and the Minister, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, has commented publicly on it, as well as on future funding models and the difficulties the centre is facing.

To give some background information on the type of education provided by the centre, the director estimates the centre turns away two referrals on average a day. The centre is at saturation point and cannot take any more students. The centre has a staff of four full-time teachers and 70 volunteers, the majority of whom are qualified teachers who have been unable to find work. They have a passion for teaching and they are volunteering at the Cork Life Centre. The centre has 40 students, according to the latest figures, and just more than half, some 22, have been referred to the centre by various agencies such as the probation service, the HSE, and the national educational and welfare board. There are 25 full-time students, with the remaining 15 or 16 operating on a part-time basis. Some attend for only eight hours a week but the hours are used for educational advancement.

The difference between the Life Centre and mainstream settings can be summed up in the fact that all students attending the Life Centre have dropped out of mainstream education for varying reasons, some of which may be personal or social. Some students may have mental health issues. The Life Centre offers the opportunity to get back into education outside of mainstream settings. All teaching is on a one-to-one basis. This is something one could never find in a mainstream setting because of resources. The volunteers at the Life Centre and the nature of the work they do means all students receive one-to-one support.

Last year, 15 students completed the junior certificate and, this year, the centre hopes to have three students complete the leaving certificate. The issue facing the Life Centre is the uncertainty of its funding. The main contributor of funds until now was the Christian Brothers, its trustees, but the level of funding offered to the Life Centre by the Christian Brothers has decreased year-on-year. Now, there is no guarantee of funding. Without this, the centre faces huge uncertainty. If the centre goes, many of the students who have dropped out of mainstream education for varying reasons will not have the opportunity of educational achievement in any other setting. That is why I ask the Minister to examine the possibility of the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Justice and Equality jointly sitting down with the trustees, or at least the directors and the teaching staff, to see what remedies can be arrived at to enable the centre to reopen in September. That does not look like it will be the case at present.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. My Department currently provides resources for the Life Centre in Dublin and in Cork. In the past academic year, my Department allocated a total of 2,768 teaching hours to the centres under the co-operation hours scheme operated by the local education and training boards, ETBs. In addition, €114,000 is provided annually to the two centres to help meet the day to day running costs. Almost 1,000 co-operation hours and €47,500 in funding are provided to the Cork Life Centre, which was established by the Christian Brothers in 1996 with the assistance of the Holy Faith Sisters. The centre caters for approximately ten young people between the ages of 12 and 16 years who are out of the mainstream school system. The centre provides a model of high-support educational provision incorporating intensive personal, social and educational support. With the hours allocated, tutors are employed by the Cork Education and Training Board to work in the centre and to deliver tuition in civic, social and political education, reading, literacy, arts and crafts, woodwork and home economics. The annual grant of €47,500 is used to meet day to day running costs of the centre. The centre prepares young people for the junior certificate and other education and training pathways.

In addition to the funding provided to the Cork Life Centre, my Department also funds a range of national programmes catering for early school leavers, such as Youthreach, community training centres and youth encounter projects that are represented in Cork. In Cork city, SOLAS funds 100 Youthreach places in four centres through the Cork Education and Training Board. The Youthreach programme provides two years integrated education, training and work experience for unemployed early school leavers with less than upper second level education who are between 15 and 20 years of age. Also, as part of the Youthreach programme, funding is provided for the Cork City learning support service, which caters for up to 70 young early school leavers aged 12 to 18 years of age. The service provides the junior certificate and some FETAC programmes for learners.

Through SOLAS, my Department provides 155 places in three community training centres which address the training and employment needs of early school leavers, primarily aged between 16 and 21 years. The Matt Talbot adolescent service in Cork provides residential drug and alcohol treatment for 14 to 18 year old boys. It provides educational courses at junior and leaving certificate level, ECDL and FETAC levels 3 and 4. My Department provides €190,000 through Cork Education and Training Board towards the cost of instruction staff at the centre.

My Department also funds the St. Kevin's youth encounter project in Cork, which can accommodate up to 25 children aged 11 to 15 years of age. Children are referred to the school by a number of agencies, including the court system, and mostly come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, with a multiplicity of problems and issues. The major budgetary pressures within my Department place significant constraints on its capacity to support existing programmes and, consequently, given the significant range of educational disadvantage interventions already supported by my Department, requests for increased funding for the Cork Life Centre simply cannot be considered. Officials of my Department have met on a number of occasions with representatives of the life centres to discuss how the children and young people who avail of the out of school provision provided in the centres might best be supported in the future.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I fully appreciate the points being made by the Deputy. There seems to be some discrepancy between the numbers given by the Deputy, which are described by the Deputy as being close to 40, and our information, which is that they are closer to ten. Perhaps we might try to establish the figure concerned. The issue has primarily arisen from the withdrawal of direct funding of the centre by the Christian Brothers. At this time there is unfortunately no scope to meet any requests for additional funds beyond the level of what is currently allocated. In the current economic climate, my focus and that of my Department must be on maintaining existing funding to all of our provision in Cork for the education of disadvantaged people to the greatest extent possible. Educational disadvantage remains a priority for the Government and we will endeavour to protect and enhance the educational experience of children, young people and students in disadvantaged areas.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of the centre. I assure the Deputy that my Department will endeavour to keep him informed of any developments relating to future funding of the centre, and I hope we will not arrive at a position in which the young people find there is no provision available. We will endeavour to ensure that does not happen.