A Roscommon councillor has condemned the decision to suspend a teenage health initiative project which was being run jointly by the Health Service Executive (HSE) West and Foróige.
The project, which has been in existence since July 2001, engaged teenage boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 17 years in a personal development and sexual health programme.
Administered with Foróige, the national youth development organisation, it has been channelled through various youth and family support centres within the HSE West region of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon.
Each programme was of 12-16 weeks' duration, was designed on a "needs" basis for individual groupings, and aimed to encourage young people to make positive and health-based decisions in relation to their lifestyles.
Last year, some 330 adolescents in Roscommon took part, through individual engagement, through group work and in conjunction with families.
Cllr Luke "Ming" Flanagan (Ind) said that two staff members attached to the project in Roscommon and Mayo were let go last week due to lack of funding, but were told that they might be re-hired in January.
"This is not good enough as there needs to be a commitment and continuity. As a result, young people in this county will be denied an invaluable service which they desperately need," he said.
The HSE West told The Irish Time that it was "currently evaluating" the project, and was "maintaining existing levels of funding to Foróige".
The HSE West "continues to support this initiative", it said in a statement.
Efforts to contact Foróige proved unsuccessful.
Cllr Flanagan said that no explanation was given for the cessation.
"I wonder have the people who made this decision been living on the moon over the last month," he said.
"We have just had the biggest national discussion ever on teenage sexual health, as a result of the discovery of potential loopholes in the laws on statutory rape."
Far from cutting the initiative, the HSE West should be working to expand it, Cllr Flanagan argued, in the context of the recent controversy and the public reaction to same.
"What sort of message does it send to these young people when we can't commit to them on a full-time basis. It shows that there is absolutely zero joined-up thinking on this issue."
Cllr Tony Ward (Ind), who is one of three Roscommon county council representatives on HSE West's regional forum, said that he had tabled a motion for the next forum meeting on the issue. "From my understanding, Roscommon and Mayo has been affected by this cut, but Galway hasn't, and it is affecting one of the most vulnerable groups in our society," he said.
The next HSE West region forum is also expected to be dominated by discussion of the proposed "downgrading" of Roscommon Hospital and the transfer of services to Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, according to Cllr Ward.
