The director of the Cork Life Centre has said the Department of Education does not understand or appreciate the centre’s work, and is attempting to supplant its current staff to “mainstream” the centre out of existence. Life Centre director Don O’Leary described a series of departmental communications as “insulting, contradictory and speaking out of both sides of their mouths”, illustrating that the department does not respect the centre’s ethos or teaching model. The centre withdrew from discussions when the department was unwilling to pay its current staff, proposing instead to transfer staff to the centre from the Cork Education Training Board (CETB). “We don’t need external staff, we need funding to pay our own staff,” Mr O’Leary told the Irish Examiner. Mr O’Leary said the centre had received support from across the political spectrum.

Source: Irish Examiner July 18, 2021 16:30 UTC