North Leitrim Resource Centre
The Leitrim Congress Resource Centre was established on New Line, Manorhamilton in October 1994 by the Sligo-Leitrim Council of Trade Unions, to compliment their existing Centre in Sligo town.
About us
About us and our training programmes
In its first year it was located in a ground floor office at No.1, New Line and a year later moved across the street to the Leitrim Glens Complex which had just been refurbished at the time.
The original board members consisted of chairpersons of various trade councils and trade union members including Joe McDonagh, Jim McDonald and John Commiskey. The board now also includes Hugh McConville (An Gaisce) and Pat O’Malley (Siptu). The centre’s mission statement is ‘To provide services that will assist and support in enabling and empowering persons who are out of work, their dependents, those who are reliant on Social Welfare payments and others who are disadvantaged in any way, to live the life of their choice to their full potential’.
The board members sit on various local boards including The Leitrim Development Company, Money Advice and Budgeting Service and the Sligo Leader Partnership Company.
From the very beginning, the Centre established a good reputation in the areas of welfare rights information and adult education and training. It also provides job-seeking supports such as CV typing and access to communications facilities such as phone, fax and internet. Along with being a service provider, the Centre has frequently been involved in campaigns around various issues of relevance to the local people whom it supports.
Over the years the Centre has also been involved in various local and cross-border initiatives including The Wider Horizons Programme funded by the National Fund for Ireland, Leitrim Community Media Project, several cross-border training courses funded by Pobal and with Public Information Days in conjunction with Eures – the European Cross-Borders information service.
In its first two years the Co-ordinator of the Centre was Fintan Flannery from Sligo. For the past 15 years the position has been held by Gerry Cornyn.
As we are all aware in the present downturn, sourcing of jobs and opportunities for the progression of our client base to employment or training and education has become more challenging. In the past two years in the Centre we have achieved more positive results in assisting small start-up businesses, mainly in the services sector, than with persons generally seeking mainstream employment. These enterprises are often home based involving one, two or three persons.
To assist in this strategy we are involved, together with other local agencies, in planning and supporting some ‘Emigrant Return Weeks’ to County Leitrim which will commence in 2012. The aims of these are to promote tourism, business investment and new employment in the county and to encourage some of our Leitrim men and women to return to their native place.
Whatever the future of our country holds, one thing is certain; there will still be great need and necessity for the various services provided by the Congress Resource Centres throughout this country for many years into the future.
Subjects in which we provide training *
Information Technology
Regions where we provide training
Leitrim, Sligo
Contact details
Name : Mr Gerry Cornyn
Job title : Coordinator
Postal address :
New Line
Manorhamilton
Co. Leitrim
Telephone number : 071 9856029
Fax number : 071 9856185
Email address : coordinator.northleitrim@congresscentres.net
Training provider added on: 26/10/2010
Profile last updated on: 07/07/2011