Dear Members and Friends,

While there have been many successes over the course of 2020 there have also been significant challenges, particularly with the Coivd -19 pandemic.

We successfully moved our operations to work remotely in line with Government guidelines and we increased the hours of operation of our National Information Service.  This was particularly necessary at the start of the lockdown back in March when there was an increased demand for information from parents on how to comply with court orders while also complying with the Government guidelines on travel restrictions and minimising contacts.  To meet the demand, Treoir’s information service opened on Saturdays and Bank Holidays as the number of calls increased.

A new Government was finally formed in June 2020, 128 days after the election.  Treoir got busy welcoming the new ministers to their posts and secured meetings with Minister Helen McEntee and Minister Roderic O’Gorman.  The meetings with ministers were very productive and will continue to work with their departments to advance the needs of parents who were never married.

The pandemic exposed many issues that were affecting parents, such as income insecurity, accommodation, parenting time, and access to legal services.  The closure of the courts increased pressure on many other services, like mediation and the alternative dispute resolution services and Treoir’s services.  Treoir worked with our members, through these difficult times to record issues and highlight the policy changes required to address issues.

We have been working on an exciting new project to support our shared parenting strategy that we will be piloting in the new year and look forward to bringing you information on that in early 2021.

Treoir is supporting Kinship Care Ireland and we successfully recruited for the new post of National Project Co-ordinator and really look forward to rolling out this work over the coming years.  We are very grateful to Tusla for their support of this project.

The Teen Parents Support Programme was able to continue to support projects during the pandemic and successfully supported a collective grant applications for the School Completion Programme funding which ensured all of the 11 projects were able to get some of this resource for the first time.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our funders for their ongoing commitments to the work of Treoir and to the Council of Treoir for their guidance and governance over the past year and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year when I hope we will be able to meet again face to face.

Nollaig shona daoibh go léir

Damien

Treoir provides a free, confidential and up-to-date information and referral service for unmarried parents whether living together or not, and the agencies involved with them.

The information service has helped many unmarried parents as they navigate their new roles as either cohabiting couples, newly separated, or never togethers.