2025-12-18

2. Deputy Mark Wall asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if her Department will provide additional and multiannual funding for therapeutic and counselling supports, such as play therapy, currently provided in family resource centres; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [73394/25]

Will the Minister and her Department provide additional and multi-annual funding for therapeutic and counselling supports, such as play therapy? Will the Minister make a statement on it?

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, administers funding for therapeutic and counselling supports. In 2024, Tusla’s total funding for family support service counselling was €8.375 million. A total of 90 family resource centres received €1.664 million. With regard to additional funding, in 2025 the Department secured the mainstreaming of an additional €1.5 million for counselling, psychotherapy and therapeutic services to children and young people to reduce waiting lists for community-based counselling services. This was previously funded as a pilot under the Dormant Accounts Fund in 2023 and 2024 and it is in addition to the yearly funding for family support services counselling I have already spoken about. In 2025, €292,500 of this additional €1.5 million funding was allocated to 30 family resource centres to allow them to continue their important work of providing counselling and wider therapeutic services, such as play therapy and creative arts therapy, in the community. The additional funding helps to address unmet need and reduce waiting lists for community-based counselling services. Funding for counselling services reflects the Government’s recognition of the critical work being done every day by local community-based services. I am proud to support their work and delighted that this additional investment of €1.5 million is now part of the mainstream funding provision through Tusla. This funding enables family resource centres and other family support service counselling services to provide counselling and therapeutic services at no cost or low cost for the communities they serve. In 2024, clinical and therapeutic lead posts were established in eight family resource centres around the country to ensure there is a clinical and therapeutic lead in all six Tusla regions. I understand that this initiative is working well. The focus of the role includes providing clinical leadership, ensuring that quality services are developed and adapted to meet emerging and presenting needs in the region, and monitoring clinical practice and governance standards. Funding for the clinical and therapeutic lead posts continued in 2025 and I have also secured funding for 2026. As the Deputy will be aware, the family resource centre programme has expanded from 121 to 126 members.

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.

I wish to conclude on the point about the family resource centres first. The Deputy is correct; we are unanimous about the importance of those family resource centres and the whole myriad of services, including those the Deputy outlined, they provide. The programme has expanded from 121 to 126 members this year. The Deputy will be aware that a further ten centres will be added in 2026. I am pleased that I secured the funding for those additional ten centres in budget 2026. Mental health services are within the gift of another Department. This is just an additional support we are providing through the family resource centres. It is important that we recognise that and there is clarity around that. Mental health services fall within the remit of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler. The total allocation for mental health services for 2026 will be almost €1.6 billion. It is quite a considerable level. It is record funding, in fact. It is an increase in funding for the sixth year in a row. I wish to acknowledge the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, in that regard. There are other avenues to support as well.

I appreciate that. I am highlighting this today because I have been speaking to a number of family resource centres. The number of referrals they are getting is causing complications for the services they are offering. I am highlighting this today to make the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, aware of the need for additional resources in our family resource centres. They have now come to a situation where there is an overload on what they can provide. The other point is the multiannual funding. They need to know what counsellors and therapists they can actually provide for the communities they work in. This is the issue that many of them have raised with me. Again I wish to put on the record that every euro spent is a very welcome euro for the communities they serve. So many of the family resource centres are up against it and on the coalface of so many community and social issues at the moment. I highlight the need for multiannual funding to ensure that our family resource services can survive and grow. That is the whole issue we are trying to highlight today.

I appreciate the Deputy highlighting it. It is highlighted to me also as I visit the family resource centres. It is a testament to the vision of the family resource centres that they are happy to step in when there is a need within a community. They do it expertly, they do it professionally and they do it without any difficulty really. That is to their credit. They always step up. I have never made any secret of the fact that I am an enormous fan of the family resource centres. The entire budget for Tusla counselling services is over €8.3 million. The additional €1.5 million that has been mainstreamed from the Dormant Accounts Fund in 2023 and 2024 has been a great addition to us. Being able to mainstream that is an additional resource. I will continue to consult the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. She has successfully increased the budget for the entirety of mental health services for six years in a row - to over €1.6 billion now - and great credit is due to her for that. There is an opportunity for us to engage further on it.