Cardinal Basil Hume is to address an audience in Dublin later this month on the plight of marginalised children.
The lecture has been organised by the Lillie Road Centre group of boys' homes in London which, according to the group manager, Father Ken McCabe, is interested in establishing a home in Ireland.
Cardinal Hume is patron of the Lillie Road Centre, which has three homes in London. Irish sponsors of the group include Mr Justice Declan Costello, former president of the High Court, and Prof Anthony Clare. British sponsors include the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw.
The lecture, on Monday, January 26th, will address the needs of marginalised children.
It will be chaired by Mr Justice Costello and will include contributions from Prof Dorota Iwaniec, head of the Social Work Department at Queen's University, Belfast, and Mr Robbie Gilligan, senior lecturer in the Social Work Department of Trinity College Dublin.
Father McCabe said he hoped the event would bring home to people the needs of children who are on the margins of society and in need of care.
The Lillie Road Centre was founded in 1975 to meet the needs of adolescent boys from deprived backgrounds living in the various London boroughs.
Boys are sent to the centre by local authorities, mainly in London. According to Father McCabe, they are mainly made up of "young people who, because of various traumatic and rejecting experiences in their lives, go through periods of very difficult and demanding behaviour".