Crucial Commitment

As far as John Logue, CEO of Suas, is concerned, A&L Goodbody has essentially been the catalyst for everything that has happened with the literacy programme in Ireland since 2013.

“A&L Goodbody acted as a major advocate for our work and has been a lynchpin in getting the Irish programme on the ground and reaching national coverage. We have calculated that A&L Goodbody is indirectly responsible for 44% of our total annual funding for the Irish programme,” he says. “A total of 4,400 children in some of the most disadvantaged schools in the country have received one-to-one support with their reading since the partnership with A&L Goodbody began in 2011.”

Through the partnership with Suas, over 200 A&L Goodbody volunteers have dedicated their time to a paired literacy support programme with 8-14 year olds in schools in Dublin’s Docklands. A&L Goodbody selected one of these schools, St Joseph’s Co-Ed Primary School in East Wall, for a writer-in-residence programme. In 2017 the law firm partnered with Francis Street CBS to create its first-ever library, as well as delivering paired reading programmes. “We are going into our seventh year of partnership with Suas. Literacy was a focus for us as it was identified as an issue in the area where our offices are located, in Dublin 1. One in ten children from this area leave primary school with low levels of literacy,” says Sinead Smyth corporate responsibility manager, A&L Goodbody. “It has been an easy way for our people to get involved in a local programme that is really beneficial to everyone involved.”

For queries in relation A&L Goodbody's Corporate Responsibility programme please contact Sinéad Smith, Corporate Responsibility Manager at A&L Goodbody.

This article first appeared in the Sunday Independent on Sunday 09 September 2018.

Date published: 10 September