One in Four has State funding cut by 24%

The One in Four charity, which helps people who have been sexually abused as children, has concluded a 12-month service agreement with the Department of Health and Children which will mean a 24 per cent cut in funding from last year.

In 2003 One in Four received €504,000 in State funding. This year it will receive €383,238.

One in Four director Mr Colm O'Gorman has said the charity will need to raise a further €260,000 to maintain services.

The agreement followed negotiations between the group and the Minister of State, Mr Brian Lenihan, and followed the crisis last October which almost forced the charity to close. It excludes any funding for One in Four's therapy programme as the Department already funds such a service through the National Counselling Service, which it set up to help people abused as children.

Mr O'Gorman said: "It is regrettable that the Department has chosen not to fund our therapy programme which will provide some 5,000 therapeutic sessions in the coming year to women and men who have experienced sexual abuse and/or sexual violence."

He acknowledged that the Department had put in place the National Counselling Service to support such people "and that it also provides funding to other NGOs offering such services".

However, he said "with waiting lists of up to 24 months in some areas such provision falls short in meeting the needs of the over one million of our citizens sexually abused a children".

To sustain its current service One in Four "must now put in place a dynamic fundraising programme to make up the shortfall in our funding.

"We are in a position where the charity will have to be 40 per cent self-funded in only our second year of operation," he said.