Charity releases cash for LGBT resource centre

The Society of St Vincent De Paul (SVP) has confirmed that it will release the first tranche of a €45,000 grant to help fund a resource centre for the gay community this month.

The money will enable the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) support group Amach to recruit a part-time community development support worker to run the centre.

Teach Solais LGBT Resource Centre located at Victoria Place off Eyre Square is due to open by the end of January as a drop-in during the day at weekends and on Wednesdays. The centre will be used in the evenings for meetings, peer support and the LGBT helpline. Workshops for education, training, counselling and various health promotion events will be held at the space.

The Society said it was satisfied with the governance arrangements for the resource centre and that all “obligations of oversight” were met when the grant was approved.

“The SVP considers the project to be an excellent concept in providing a safe meeting place for members of the LGBT community and their families in Galway and surrounding areas and is very much in line with the Society’s mission in supporting people who may be marginalised, or experiencing problems such as loneliness, social isolation, exclusion, discrimination, bullying and mental health issues,” the charity said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Amach said it welcomed SVP’s supportive statement.

“We are looking forward to the new year and to the many positive developments for Galway’s LGBT community when the centre opens,” said a spokesperson for Amach.

Late last year the charity declined to comment on reports that it had ‘stood down’ the SVP St Augustine’s Conference which administered the Maureen O’Connell Fund and awarded the grant. It had been approved by the organisation’s National Management Council (NMC).

The fund was “winding down” as over 90% of its funds had been spent or approved for 60 beneficial projects, including funding for several resource centres and day care centres in Galway city and county as well as social housing and for a range of education projects for children.

There is approximately €350,000 which has not been allocated or approved from the €7.8m plus interest received from the bequest. The remainder will be managed by the NMC.

The project overcame another significant hurdle when the local authority approved €25,000 towards the cost of renting the building after an initial disagreement that it should go to the cost of buying a property.

In 2014, the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan slammed the charity’s allocation toward a gay resource centre, which he said promotes a culture that was “morally wrong”. In letters sent to the SVP demanding an explanation, the Bishop hinted the allocation could jeopardise the relationship between the Church and the charity.

Publican Maureen O’Connell, who was unmarried and without children, left her landmark pub in Eyre Square to the charity when she died in 1998, specifying that it should only go towards projects in Galway. Legal wrangling over the will meant that it did not go on sale until the height of the Celtic Tiger when it was sold in 2006 for €14m.

The cost of a settlement with a tenant in the pub and legal bills as well as Capital Gains Tax swallowed up over €6m of the sale price.