Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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We must move on. I thank the Minister of State. The next Commencement matter is in the name of Senator Carrigy. It relates to a family resource centre in County Longford. I understand the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is staying for this matter.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking it.

Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Acting Chairperson and the Minister of State. My request is quite simple. It is in the statement the Acting Chairperson just read out, that is, the provision of funding for a family resource centre in Longford town, specifically €180,000 for a senior staff member and two support staff to provide a resource centre for a town with a population of 10,000. That is not there at present.

One might ask why Longford should have a resource centre. I will reference a document published only late last year, the Longford Community Safety Plan 2022-2024. All agencies in the town came together, including the local authority, the Garda and the business community, to put together proposals to improve and support our community. Over 19.5% of the population of Longford town is from overseas and is not of Irish nationality. There are higher than average levels of unemployment and people not going to further education. The need is there.

I will reference a few statements that came from the public consultation that took place among all of the people in Longford. I was at a number of the consultations and the Comhairle na nÓg group meeting with the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, where people highlighted their concern and the need for this service. There needs to be an increase in resources for family support throughout the county, focused on the whole family and not just children. A drop-in centre is needed in Longford town to make it easy for people to get the services they need, such as addiction services, counselling and help with forms. There are the examples of Bridgeway and Lios Na Gréine in Ballymahon and Granard, respectively, where there are great services. We do not have this service in Longford town.

As I said, there is a population of 10,000 people without that service. One of the main objectives and probably the number one objective of the community safety partnership plan is highlighting the need for that centre in our county town to address a lot of the social issues.I do not think it is too much of an ask for the funding to be put in place to give us the services that we need in our town. We have a fantastic service in Longford Women's Link that provides domestic violence support. It is located just 400 m away from where we have a site and a building that is fully functional and available to house a family resource centre. No capital expenditure will be needed. It is there. We have a fantastic service with Longford Women's Link with regard to child care and domestic violence support.

We have no support services for families with autism. I know the Minister of State is working hard on developing a strategy to provide these services. The Oireachtas committee, of which I am a member, is also doing so. It is a simple ask. We have a building that will incur no capital expenditure, fully fitted out and fully furnished. We just need the sanction from Tusla.

I know the reply I will probably get from the Department listing out all funding that has been provided. However, in 2022 additional funding of €6 million was allocated to enable Tusla to increase supports to the wider community and voluntary sector. That does not include Longford town and it needs to. The facts and figures are there to be seen from the census of the need that we have. I ask that this be prioritised immediately. I know there is not an open call for the centres at present. We submitted an application back in 2018 and were unsuccessful. I do not think a proper application was submitted at the time. The fact that this building was available but was not part of the application would have been one of the main reasons we were unsuccessful. We have the building and it is available. We need the sanction to be put in place and we would have a centre up and running before the summertime. We have a voluntary committee of people who are willing to work and support that.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking this on behalf of the Minister for Children, Equality and Disability, Deputy O'Gorman, so I will read his reply into the record. Deputy O'Gorman has had recent correspondence with a number of individuals on this subject and, in particular, the hope to establish a family resource centre at Attic House in Longford. The Minister also regularly engages with colleagues in the Dáil and other public representatives and interested parties seeking additional family resource centres in different parts of the country.

Both the Minister and the Department acknowledge important, inclusive work many groups that hope to develop family resource centres already carry out across communities in Ireland. Tusla, the child and family agency, administers the family resource centre programme. This supports 121 family resource centres throughout the country. Currently, there are no plans to increase the number of family resource centres. Tusla area managers engage in the commissioning process. Their involvement with community and voluntary agencies greatly informs that process. Tusla aims to utilize the total resources available to it in the most efficient, equitable, proportionate and sustainable way in order to improve outcome for children, young people and families.

Tusla recognises the importance of supporting the provision of community services. The Department and Tusla's national commissioning officers have received several requests from interested parties seeking to become members of the family resource centre programme. Should membership of the family resource centre programme be expanded in the future, Tusla has advised that a transparent process would be established to ensure all applicants are treated fairly. This would include engagement with community organisations throughout the country that may wish to make expressions of interest.

Inadequacies and gaps in service provision are identified through Tusla's commissioning process, which is carried out at a local and national level on an ongoing basis. Proximity of services would also be an important factor and communities are facing many challenges. There are a number of family resource interests in the region available to residents, such as Bridgeway Family Resource Centre in Ballymahon, Lios na Gréine Family Resource Centre in Granard as well as Cara Phort in Athlone, Westmeath. In addition, the Department, in conjunction with the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, IGEES, has recently concluded and published a spending review of Tusla's family support services. The review is a comprehensive analysis focusing on family support services policy, landscape, commissioning and governance and trends in family support services expenditure in recent years. The review will be a key to the next steps in the area of family support services, including any alterations to the programme.What the Senator has put before us today is something I will bring back to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. A population of 10,000 people has no family resource centre and a building is available which means no capital infrastructure is required. The Senator mentioned the diversity of the community and the women's refuge centre. We need to consider how it can partner with and support organisations.

Senator Carrigy spoke to my brief regarding autism and the need to support families in the community. There needs to be a key focal point that can be signposted. Family resource centres are a front door for so many. It is more than likely to be the piece that is missing in the jigsaw of the Senator's tapestry in order to finish off what is needed in the community. As Senator O'Loughlin would attest to, the family resource centre in Kildare is very good. However, it needed an additional key worker to meet the need in the area. They play a vital role in communities.

Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. As she said, family resource centres have welcoming front doors, but unfortunately we do not have that front door for families. We need a commitment. Part of the Minister of State's reply referred to inadequacies and gaps in service provision being identified through Tusla's commissioning process which is carried out at local and national level. I would like to see a copy of the commissioning process and whether Longford has been identified. If it has not, those involved are not doing their job correctly.

There is a population of 10,000. The centres in Ballymahon and Granard, Bridgeway and Lios na Gréine, do good work. They are 15 miles from each other. We want to support families. In a lot of cases, the families we want to support do not have transport. We need a centre in the local community. I do not accept we need to wait. We have already waited five years for another opportunity. During that time, a lot of voluntary organisations have tried to support families in the community without a dedicated service. It is a no-brainer. We need to step away and look at the need. I would like to see the report of the Tusla commissioning process and where a need has been identified.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I will speak to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and see if he can get the Senator a copy of the report so that he has a line of sight on the situation. As I said, I will take information on the population of 10,000 back to the Minister. I totally take on board the fact that the Senator has said there are barriers in terms of transport for people in Ballymahon.

The role of the family resource centre is to be a front door so that when people are in crisis they can walk in, rather than having to put transport in place and deal with other obstacles. I want to acknowledge the work of family resource centres. That is why we all want to have one. The 121 we have are probably too few.