A £3.5 million (€4.44 million), five-year plan which has been unveiled by Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind (IGDB), will see the establishment of a new outreach centre for visually impaired people in the Dublin area, a new breeding programme for guide dogs, and an advanced training programme for staff at the organisation's headquarters in Cork.
For 25 years, the IGDB has gone largely unnoticed and unsung, but as a voluntary organisation which relies heavily on self-financing, it has provided a service that is unique in the Republic and without which the lives of the visually impaired might be much less fulfilled than they are today.
The familiar sight of visually impaired people walking with their guide dogs on busy streets is the most obvious indicator of the IGDB's success. However, it tells only part of the story.
From an organisation that began in 1976 through the efforts of a Cork man, Mr Jim Dennehy, who lost his sight during a shooting accident, the IGDB has become a highly motivated voluntary body and its presence means that people with sight problems no longer have to travel to the UK for training with guide dogs.
Over the years, at its residential mobility training centre in Cork, it has trained and matched some 372 visually impaired people with guide dogs and a further 200 in the use of the long cane. In the past year, at a cost of £2.4 million, the IGDB opened a state-of-the-art training centre at the Model Farm Road headquarters where the only residential facilities for the visually impaired in the Republic are located. A new kennel block was also opened. The State's contribution towards the total cost was £1.25 million.
According to the IGDB's chief executive officer, Mr Sean Walsh, annual running costs at the headquarters are more than £1 million of which the Government provides only £150,000.
There is therefore a strong fund-raising ethos within the organisation and last year, through its network of branches, IGDB raised £680,000.
In Ireland, some 7,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted but the IGDB says that for a variety of reasons, significant numbers of visually impaired are not on the register. There is a critical need, Mr Walsh insists, for the organisation's services to be developed and expanded.
The five-year plan is the launching pad for this expansion and reflects the fact that 45 per cent of the IGDB's clients live in the greater Dublin area. There is no other significance to this than Irish demographic trends but the move means that within the lifetime of the plan, the full range of services offered by the IGB will be available in Dublin.
The guide dogs will continue to be trained and bred at the Cork headquarters which now has 30 full-time and eight part-time staff, and new technology training will also take place there.
This year, a record 33 guide dogs were trained. They are bred for their loyalty, and must be biddable, sensitive, healthy and have a good work ethic. Getting the dog/owner match right is crucial, the IGDB says, and a lot of time and effort is put in at the training centre to ensure the best possible pairing is made.
Dogs destined for a life as guides are placed with families six weeks after birth. It's part of the early "socialisation" process. After a year, the dogs are brought back into the training centre where they are taught basic guiding skills over a five-month period, followed by three months of advanced training. During the training, the dogs are constantly assessed to determine personality traits and how best to match them to a prospective owner who is also undergoing residential training in dog handling and management. Four visually impaired people and four dogs are trained at a time.
Once dog and client have been matched, they leave for a new life together but there is a further period of two weeks of back-up training in the home to ensure the dog and its master or mistress are ready to go it alone.
The dogs are trained, says the IGDB training manager, Mr Simon Higgs, to walk in straight lines to the next kerb before stopping and carrying on in a straight line again when the owner gives the signal to go.
The working life of the dog is usually eight years, and normally, the dogs are retired to live a life of leisure in their owner's house while a younger one is pressed into action.