Local Notes: Ballyhaunis centre reflects on a busy year
Piotr Cieslikowski was inducted recently into Chartered Accountants Ireland. A past pupil of Ballyhaunis Community School, Piotr graduated from ATU Galway in 2022 and is currently working as Corporate Audit Senior at accounting firm Grant Thornton.
New staff and increased funding were highlights of a busy year so far at Ballyhaunis Family Resource Centre.
“Supporting families and strengthening our community remain the primary goals for the Family Resource Centre,” the chairperson of the organisation, Tzyy Wang, said at the entity’s annual general meeting held last week.
“Our aim is to create opportunities and provide supports for children and families within our diverse community, particularly initiatives designed to strengthen family life and help people overcome isolation, disadvantage, and social exclusion,” said Ms Wang, who was reappointed chairperson at the AGM, serving alongside secretary Grahame Cleary and treasurer Muhammad Usman Sarwar.
Ms Wang explained that Ballyhaunis FRC, based at the Friary House, is one of 136 family resource centres operating across Ireland which together form “Ireland’s largest family support programme”. Each FRC receives €160,000 core funding from Tusla, the Child and Family Agency.
“We are pleased to hear the programme will receive additional funds, bringing our annual core funding to new minimum level of €180,000 from 2026,” said Ms Wang. “This funding increase ensures we have sufficient staff and resources to support the growth and potential of the [Ballyhaunis] Centre. This includes the recruitment of a new Community Development Worker in addition to employing a full-time Project Coordinator and Project Administrator.
“This year we recruited a new Project Coordinator and are delighted to welcome Alma Gallagher, following the period during which the Centre was managed by an interim coordinator, Anne Flynn. Alma brings considerable experience in rural and community development, programme management and working with local organisations. She will work closely with the board, staff, families and community groups to strengthen our existing services and identify new opportunities for the Centre and the wider community.
“Our Family Support Service, led by Geraldine Glacken, has worked intensively with families facing challenges, offering confidential, needs-led support. Counselling and Play Therapy services also continued operating.”
Adult education and community learning has grown from strength to strength at the FRC, said Ms Wang. “English language classes and activities for parents and guardians of children attending Ballyhaunis Community School and Scoil Íosa National School continue along with Fáilte Isteach English Conversational Classes.”
The FRC also provides childcare services: Ballyhaunis Community Preschool based on the Friary grounds and the Greater Tomorrow Programme, which is based in the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centre at the Old Convent. The 11-person childcare team is led by Childcare Manager Hina Rehman.
“These services provide safe, welcoming and nurturing environments in which children can learn, develop and build confidence,” said Ms Wang. “Staff training and development in the early-years services continue to remain a priority to ensure child protection policies and procedures are continually updated.
“Governance and board oversight remains a priority. We signed off on all outstanding items from the Tusla audit in 2025. This exercise has provided us with the groundwork to ensure strong governance and transparent oversight of all the services available at the centre.
"A highlight in 2025 was the launch of the 2024 Annual Report and website in October 2025, which was attended by FRC National Forum CEO Fergal Landy and Tusla national managers Lorraine Donohue and James Carty.”
Ms Wang said she openly welcomes members of the community to join the FRC’s voluntary board “and be a part of an enduring programme in Ballyhaunis". She pointed the community to the centre’s website (www.ballyhaunisfrc.ie) to learn more.
Geraldine O’Loughlin, a teacher from Ballyhaunis Community School, has been central to the efforts by secondary school teachers to get better pay and conditions, as a regional representative of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI), sitting on the national executive to represent West Mayo, East Mayo and Carrick-on-Shannon at the monthly meetings.
Ms O’Loughlin believes the recent strike action “brought home” to government the struggles of teachers to make ends meet – in particular young teachers struggling to pay rent while on non-permanent contracts.
The strike brought focus on the cost of living but pay isn’t the only issue, Geraldine explained. Government efforts to link any increase in pay to increases in productivity is particularly troubling given the increasing workload being placed on teachers by curriculum reform, said Ms O’Loughlin.
“We are stretched,” said Geraldine who pointed to the changing of the geography curriculum she teaches, for instance, which has created much more work for teachers given 40 percent of the marks are being given for project work that has to be supervised and monitored.
“It’s a struggle for teachers to get on top of that,” she explained. “It’s really, really difficult to get it all done.”
Meanwhile, she explained, there is an accelerating trend of moving children with special needs into mainstream education but this is happening without extra training for teachers or funding.
“There are already different levels within a class but I have no training for teaching special needs students. How am I supposed to go into the classroom unprepared? I may raise my voice but maybe the student has sensory needs. Training is a fair ask.”
Adding to the challenges is the shortage of teachers, said Ms O’Loughlin.
“There is a huge shortage of Irish teachers. Maths teachers are particularly hard to find. Teachers of foreign languages are similarly in short supply.”
Retention of young teachers is a “huge issue,” said Ms O’Loughlin, “because young teachers are looking and saying ‘what else can I do?’”
"Some have changed career or moved abroad. The plight of young teachers in Dublin is particularly acute as they can’t afford to rent accommodation there.”
The nature of temporary teaching hours is particularly off-putting for young teachers.
“I know one young teacher who is getting 11 hours per week and doing this for two years. They think ‘I’d be better off on social welfare.’”
Recent retrofitting works at the parochial house have made the building much more comfortable, Fr Stephen Farragher told the recent Energy Talks event organised by Ballyhaunis Community Council for Climate Action Week as an opportunity for locals to share experiences with renewable energy.
Fr Stephen explained how a heat pump was installed in the building after external insulation was applied to the exterior.
“It’s really important that the building is well insulated so that the heat pump can work efficiently,” he explained. “The heat pump now keeps the building at a constant temperature rather than you turning on the heat before when there was an oil boiler, now the heat pump works all the time keeping the building at a constant temperature which is very comfortable.”
Solar panels installed on the roof of the building have reduced the cost of running the building, said Fr Stephen.
Several other householders shared their experience generating solar power for home use and for export to the grid.
Electric car owner Pat Higgins explained how he had minimised his motoring costs by charging his car with electricity generated by the solar panels on his roof. Also an EV driver, Tim Rabbitte explained that through solar power his cost of motoring had been reduced to less than half the cost of operating a petrol driven car on comparable journey distances.
The shortage of qualified mechanics able to do repairs on electric car batteries was an issue highlighted by motorist Tzyy Wang who explained how she had to send her Nissan Leaf vehicle across the country to Arklow for repairs on the battery because there was no garage on the west coast capable of replacing problem cells in the battery. Several attendees agreed that while charging infrastructure for vehicles is improving there remains some work to do particularly as chargers are not always able to charge all makes of electric car.
The talk also heard from Michael Cleary about how to get the best tariffs from electricity companies to maximise the value of your solar panels.
Secretary of Ballyhaunis Community Council Mary Donnelly explained the organisation had made significant savings on energy bills at the hall.
“We installed a heat pump and solar panels with support from the SEAI which also grant aided our external insulation. This has given us a much more comfortable building for our many users.”
