Family Resource Centres Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-29 ============================================================ Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West Céad míle fáilte roimh and a huge welcome to our dignitaries, who join us from Kerala in India. My council area is that of South Dublin County Council. Its former mayor, who was elected for the Tallaght South electoral district, is from Kerala. I thank the dignitaries for being here. I thank Senator Boyhan for raising this important issue and giving me the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Foley. I also thank him for acknowledging the process behind the budget negotiations and the amount of work that goes into that. I take this opportunity to thank the officials in my Department who are working as we speak on negotiations for the upcoming budget. I agree with the Senator from both governance and performance perspectives that we measure the progress that is achieved year on year and measure the progress against the goals for which we sought and received funding. I am delighted to have the opportunity to do that here on the floor today. The Minister greatly appreciates the advocacy of the Senator on behalf of the family resource centre programme. She knows that the Senator has done extensive work in this area. As the Senator stated, last year's budget delivered the largest increase in funding for the family resource centre network in eight years. This additional investment enabled the Minister to deliver on the programme for Government commitment to strengthen the family resource centre programme by increasing funding and expanding both its capacity and network. As the Senator said, funding was secured to provide an increase in the minimum core funding to a new base level of €180,000, up from the previous base level of €160,000. That benefited a significant number of family centre programme members. The Department allocates that core funding for the family resource centre programme through Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. Tusla administers the programme, which supports members throughout the country. In addition to that increase in core funding, membership of the family resource centre programme in 2026 also grew. The Senator mentioned this in his own contribution. It has grown by ten members, from 126 programme members to 136. That followed the expansion the year previously from 121 members to 126 members. We doubled that growth trajectory from five new members in 2025 to ten in 2026. Recent increases in the family resource centre programme membership have been very welcome developments for an additional 15 communities in need of this comprehensive range of services. As the Senator said, and as the Minister, Deputy Foley, said previously, these are for the community, these are of the community, and these are by the community. The Minister, Deputy Foley, understands that Tusla's national commissioning unit, along with the family resource centre national forum, have been working with the new family resource centres to integrate them. That growth has already been seen on the ground. This weekend, the Minister, Deputy Foley, officially opened the Áiseanna na hÓige family resource centre which is in Dingle. That is one of the ten most recently announced programme members. Earlier this month, the Minister, Deputy Foley, announced €1.3 million in once-off capital investment in Ireland's network of 136 family resource centres. This will also provide each centre with a once-off capital allocation of €10,000 in 2026. That will support locally identified capital, premises, equipment, ICT and infrastructure priorities. It gives the family resource centres the flexibility to identify the investments that will make the greatest difference to the children, to the families and to the communities that they serve. The benefit of community-based services such as family resource centres cannot be overstated. Many of us have seen first-hand the impacts that family resource centres have on the communities they serve. They engage with vulnerable families, they offer services to individuals across the whole life cycle, from early years to senior citizens, and crucially, they foster a positive and inclusive community spirit. That range of services can be extensive and can be determined by the needs of relevant communities. It is particularly important to note that many are delivered at no cost or low cost to families who may otherwise not be able to access these services. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-29