Pictured: Outgoing Director of Counselling at Raphoe Diocesan Pastoral Services CLG, Liam Cannon
Councillors of Letterkenny-Milford have agreed to put political weight behind a campaign to save child and adolescent counselling services provided by Raphoe Diocesan Pastoral Services CLG.
The non-profit service, the only one of its kind in Donegal, yesterday announced that it will cease to operate from mid-March due to a lack of funding for leadership staff.
The importance of the service was stressed at today’s meeting of the Letterkenny-Milford Municipal District.
Cllr Jimmy Kavanagh said that families of surviving members of the Creeslough tragedy are availing of counselling support from the service and are worried about starting again.
“We should explore every avenue we can to see if funding can be got,” Cllr Kavanagh said.
The Pastoral Centre is currently helping 120 clients across seven outreach centres — including Letterkenny, Dunfanaghy, Stranorlar, Creeslough and Buncrana. A further 350 young people are on the waiting list.
The board said its calls for investment from the HSE and Tusla to finance a director of counselling and a coordinator have gone unanswered, forcing them to halt all operations this spring.
Cllr Michael McBride has called on the council to use whatever influence it has to get the HSE to put a budget in place for the necessary roles.
He said it will be a “bad day” for Letterkenny and the whole of Donegal when the service closes.
“We need to make sure there is no stone left unturned to keep it in place,” Cllr McBride said.
Cllr Gerry McMonagle told members that the issue has already been raised at government level.
“It would do no harm for the council to weigh in behind the group, and bring pressure to the Ministers responsible to invest in a very good service,” he said.
Concerns were echoed by Cllr Donal ‘Mandy’ Kelly and Mayor of Letterkenny-Milford, Cllr Kevin Bradley. Cllr Bradley proposed to meet with Bishop Alan McGuckian on the matter, pledging, “we have to do our best to try and save this”.
