Aontú’s Donegal candidate has said that she is “shocked and furious” at the prospect of closure of the only child and adolescent counselling service in the county – which she described as a “lifeline” for people going through “a very black period in their lives”.
Mary T Sweeney, who is standing for her party in the Letterkenny LEA, said that young people are in desperate need of services.
The Raphoe Diocesan Pastoral Services said earlier this week that, although it is the only provider of child and adolescent counselling in the county, it would have to stop offering services in Co Donegal after the HSE and Tusla said it would not give funding for a full-time director of counselling.
This would create “a dangerous void” for young people’s mental health services, the centre’s board of directors said.
“The rapid growth of the service in response to surging demand for counselling has resulted in an acute necessity for the funding of a full-time director of counselling and a coordinator,” the board said. Amongst those assisted by the services until now were people affected by the Creeslough tragedy, in which 10 people were killed in October 2022 after an explosion at a petrol station.
The centre said it had now received confirmation that the HSE and Tusla would not be funding roles at the not-for-profit centre.
“Despite consistent, exhaustive and explorative efforts in recent months to secure much-needed rolling investment from the HSE and Tusla to finance these positions, it’s now been confirmed that no funding will be made available,” the board said. “Consequently, the Raphoe Diocesan Pastoral Services CLG has been forced to take the extremely difficult decision to wind down its counselling provision across Donegal.”
Responding to the “shock” closure announcement, Ms Sweeney said: “I am shocked and absolutely furious about the announcement of the closure of the
Raphoe Diocesan Pastoral Services Centre. They will cease operations in mid-March as funding for their absolutely vital services is not forthcoming from the HSE. This is the only child and adolescent counselling service available in this county and it is literally a lifeline for people”.
“I have come across several young people, who I have either directed to the service, or those who have used the service which provided the only lifeline they could get to receive counselling to enable them get through a very black period in their lives,” she said.
“They were not in a position to go privately and quite frankly they should not have to”.
“This is just the latest in a long line of cuts to vital mental services across the county. I’m so sad for the young people who so desperately need this service. There is a waiting list of 350 people in need of help and support and the service is currently providing counselling to 120 people.” the Aontú candidate said.
“We hear so much ‘guff’ from the Government about Mental Health and the importance of minding one’s mental health but here we have a service doing all the hard work on the ground, actually really helping and providing solace to people, and they are being closed down. It is absolutely nauseating,” she said.
“Is this another attack by the HSE on mental health services in Donegal?” she asked.
“This centre also houses the much need Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings …where are they supposed to go”.
“We are told that the country is awash with money …well if that is true, why are our vital mental health services being hollowed out,” the Aontú candidate said.
“I understand that the actual costs of running this centre are not exorbitant and I want answers from the HSE as to the actual costs and why it is not providing the money. I am calling for cross party support to save this centre; this is too serious and issue for ‘politicking’”.”
“We need to come together to overturn this decision. I am organising a petition calling for the immediate reversal of this terrible decision. We need to fight for the people of Donegal and hold the HSE to account”.
The HSE’s Community Healthcare Organisation Area said in a statement that “a standard application and negotiation process exists within the HSE for funding non-statutory agencies”.
“This process is used by the HSE to approve funding to a voluntary/non-statutory agency in relation to health and personal social services through Service Level Agreements. There is currently no such agreement with this agency.
I find candidates are always shocked and appalled before they get elected and after they tend to work with ngos in the back ground and not be as shocked and appalled when the irish are concerned such as Peadar who seems to like lobbying for ngos on illegal immigrants and sustainability.
https://www.lobbying.ie/return/57205/social-justice-ireland
https://www.lobbying.ie/return/81860/irish-refugee-council
Not saying you’re wrong (I don’t know), but that site is there because there is a legal obligation for certain petitionary activities and meetings to be recorded; it does not always equate to support or agreement.
It shows the lobbying activities of td’s and Councillors and what they advocate for. They have to right not to lobby for these but they do. Its not an obligation, its voluntary. That speaks volumes. Now if you go to aontus website, it specifically criticizes the governments policy on immigration and outlines what should happen, yet peadar for some strange reason throws all that to the wind and side with the irish refugee council. Thats double standards. Aontu have achieved literally nothing of any consequence since its inception and that is a fact nobody can dispute. Its quite clear that based on the lobbying v the official policy, aontus action in this case was no different to the existing cartel and whats more is that he wants to keep them in the country for 6 months instead of sending back on the return flight which is what needs to happen now.
It’s lobbying by the outside bodies, not by Aontú. And there is a legal obligation for it to be recorded; whether or not this always is the case, it’s not voluntary.
It could represent an attempt by SJI and the refugee council to establish for their own purposes where exactly Aontú stands in respect of the lobbying purposes of thes groups (so they can either create a relationship with them or do a public attack on how nasty aontú are, etc.)
Or it could be evidence of an already existing relationship, and overlap of jnterests.
I’m neutral on Aontú, but have they a td other than Tóibín ? What could they be realistically be expected to have ‘achieved’ ? As for their particular position on x, y or z, the fact that it may not exactly coincide with how you, I or anyone else feels is just a fact that reality is nuanced. Otherwise things just will start to appear as a mirror-image of the reality seen by leftist lunatics, who see nazis everywhere.
Despite the fact that lots of deeply messed up stuff happens in the world, you should be careful about slipping into paranoia and thoughts that are detached from reality.
Have an upvote. When I came to this comment section someone else had downvoted you for highlighting the truth.
Thanks for shining a light on this . I wouldn’t ever vote for Peadar and Aontu anyway but good to see what they are up to
You are welcome and thanks for the vote. Im objective in everything so I dont really do bias as I know its one of the things that have led us to this situation in the first place. The most important thing in this life right now is truth and its the only thing that is going to get us out of this mess. I spent my life looking at everything and why things happen which meant that I had alot of reality checks. I could not lie to myself anymore on anything. I spent years traveling and working around the world and worked for the usa military, british government agencies and even our own government agencies to name a few and I see the plan. It is not the time for cognitive dissonance because of hurt egos. It is truly time to wake up fully. Alot of people think they know whats going on but they really don’t, they don’t see the grand plan which is why im here to tell people. The truth which I have only touched on in my comments is so crazy, it would never be believed which is why I post links like this to warn people and try to help them because I don’t want to see my country or my people suffer anymore. The reality is that what is going on today has links going back thousands of years and this iteration of the agenda was established in 1954 at harvard university. Technically we might have moved on but the people who rule the world are still of the mindset of 4 thousand years ago. None of these parties are any good and are in lockstep with it and the sooner people wake up, the sooner we can unite as a people.
Agree, we need candidates that will promise to close 90% of all NGOs… like that newly elected US-puppet in Argentina. Unfortunately, that guy believes strongly in Monopolies and Multi-conglomerates dominating humanity and maintaining the social order… and… dare I say that dirty word again?… he is a WEF member!
He does not feel right anyway pat, never did. The reality is that we are on the very edge of things right now and there is only room for truth. We dont need people who will say one thing and go off to cater to lobbying over the people. Politicians are supposed to represent the people, thats their job, not to cater for alternative agendas in the back ground and tell nobody, especially when it conflicts with the policies you publish on your website. If people are not going to grow a pair and face the full truth and ignore their egos, we have no hope because its just divide and conquer. Personally, I dont actually care what people chose to believe, do or practice in their own personal lives, it has nothing to do with me but when our country is at stake and our people are in danger, thats when I stand up and say it. Im not here to be popular, im here to do my bit as well as tell everyone I meet every day. If it all does go south, I did my bit. NGO’s have to go and laws need to put in place to separate them from government. Government should be bias and only represent the view of the majority.
Imagine the benefit this resource would have been to our present government.
I find candidates are always shocked and appalled before they get elected and after they tend to work with ngos in the back ground and not be as shocked and appalled when the irish are concerned such as Peadar who seems to like lobbying for ngos on illegal immigrants and sustainability.
https://www.lobbying.ie/return/57205/social-justice-ireland
https://www.lobbying.ie/return/81860/irish-refugee-council
No the strange thing whan i was searching for peadar was that some results were removed, very bizarre behavior.