Cork's Life Centre forced to turn away referrals

A centre for early school-leavers which faces possible closure unless it secures extra funding has revealed it is turning away a growing number of referrals.

The Life Centre in Cork City offers educational training to 40 people between the ages of 12 and 18 — and its director has said that on one day last month it received eight referrals.

Don O’Leary, a former Sinn Féin councillor, said: “We are figuring it out that since October and before that we are having one or two referrals a day and we can’t take any of them. I would love to take them but we haven’t got the space. We are at saturation point.”