Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Zappone, to the House. As Leader, I congratulate her on her Galas success. Grove Cottage, the Togher family support service, is an important community facility that gives access to families who need its services. Some 77 children and families availed of the service last year. This group of people fall between private and public funding and cannot afford a service at the prices being asked but are accommodated by the Togher family support service. The centre is hugely important in the area of family law and child care and caters for estranged parents in a variety of different relationships.

I received an email from a mother who said:

I have been availing of their child contact service which allows me to see and build a relationship with my daughter, ... which I would otherwise not have been able to do without this service.

There are other private organisations that provide a child contact service in the Cork area, but as I am in receipt of social welfare I am unable to avail of their services due to the much higher cost per visit.

If this service closes as planned then I will have a real struggle maintaining a relationship with my 4 year old daughter.

I received another email from a person with whom I am well acquainted, who wrote:

Seeing my child is the hope that was given to me when I needed it. I am secure in the knowledge that they work directly with "Children First" in mind at all times.

It is tragic that the one and only place that can offer this support in Cork is being closed due to lack of funds. I have no doubt that I would have been at the very least feeling suicidal by now had I still not seen my child. I dread to think of her growing up without her mother.

These are emotional emails. The Minister has met with representatives of the Togher family centre and I commend her on her proactivity in this regard. She has a child-centred brief and is very much in control of it and if she visited the centre she would see the quality of the people who work there. If she went into Grove Cottage she would see the environment - the toys, the furnishings, the care, the support and the safe, child-friendly environment, which are testimony to Jackie Costello and the people who work there. The centre ensures there is an environment where relationships can be rebuilt, advice and support are offered and professional supervision is provided for our most vulnerable at a critical time in their lives, whether they are recovering from addiction or coming out of domestic abuse or sexual violence.

The Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs will be aware of issues with the courts referring people to this service in Togher, which is happening more a more and is further testimony to the work being done at the centre at Grove Cottage. This is about children and families. I recognise that Tusla provides funding to Togher family centre in the area of access, but we must look at the people who fall through the cracks. I appeal to the Ministers in the Department of Justice Equality and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to come to an understanding that intervention in the form of provision of extra funding is needed, or perhaps new funding is needed, because this is a very important service.

I was the Chairman of the committee involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny of Children First and which recognised the importance of the children's referendum. I do not mean to be patronising but the Minister is bringing a certain and a different emphasis that was not, perhaps, in the role before. This is about children and their right to have a relationship with their families.

I would hope that the work of Grove Cottage, which has developed and evolved beyond what was envisaged on day one, will continue. It provides quality affordable child contact, and I know from going there and meeting with parents and staff that this is an issue that is going arise in other parts of the country, because more referrals are taking place. The request for funding to expand the service was unsuccessful in the past, but I hope that now, at a time when we have seen an increase in budgets, an accommodation can be found.

I commend the work that is being done, which the Minister knows about because she has met with the staff there, and I hope that we can find extra funding. I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for choosing this matter. He knows that as Leader I rarely put in Commencement matters, but this is one I feel very passionate about. Go raibh maith agat.