Family Resource Centres
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Mark Wall (LAB), Kildare South

I thank the Minister for her reply. We can all agree, as we have done previously, that great work is being done by all the family resource centres. The Minister has, in fairness, expanded and created a number of new centres. The problem I am hearing is that the references and referrals coming from many organisations, such as Tusla, the HSE, CAMHS and local authorities, are overloading family resource centres and they are having great difficulty in meeting the demand that is there. We all know the benefits of play therapy and other counselling services. Is the Minister aware of all the referrals that are coming from the various organisations? Are they included in the figures she has just given the Dáil? Will she give multi-annual funding to our family resource centres to ensure they can cope with the additional demand they are facing at the moment? It is quite traumatic for them to have to turn people away from the doors when they are getting referrals. That is the unfortunate consequence of not having the multi-annual funding that should be available for them. That is the basis of my question, that is, the number of referrals they are getting from Government and non-Government organisations. Maybe the Minister can comment on that.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18