Fears are being expressed over the future of the Immigrant Advice Clinic in Kilkenny.
Funding for the support officer based at the Fr McGrath Centre facility is set to run out at the end of next month prompting concern for what will happen next.
Therese Delahunty who is the founder of the clinic which runs from the Fr McGrath Centre claims they are now at risk of permanent closure.
She told KCLR Live getting the funding has been a struggle from year to year, saying “It’s always been a challenge for us every year for the past eleven years, however we’ve always been able to cobble together a mish-mash of small funding to keep us going and unfortunately this year we havn’t been able to get sufficient funds to keep going for the next year”.
She adds “It’s not just the advice, that’s important to say, the advice is just the tip, it’s the support and the enabling and the empowering and constantly being a space for people to come where they know confidentiality is there, they know that they trust us to tell us about their private matters that perhaps they would be reluctant to maybe state agencies maybe they coming from a background where they haven’t a good experience there so we’re important for that”.
