The new president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors (IGC) says he has become "more and more frustrated at the lack of support from Government for our work at all level".

Brian Mooney has pledged to use all his energies to build a campaign to lobby candidates for political office in the next general election.

A relatively recent recruit to guidance counselling himself, Mooney says he plans to inform candidates and "all negotiating bodies who may be responsible for negotiating our terms and conditions of work of the potential benefits to society in Ireland of a properly resourced and funded comprehensive guidance service for all citizens, whether in school or the adult world".

Mooney is guidance counsellor at Oatlands, College, Mount Merrion, Dublin, where he has been teaching for 25 years. He is also a past pupil of the college.

He is the co-author, with Kevin Flanagan, of How to Get Your Child Maximum Points. Their latest book, Seven Steps to a Happier Family, was published in July. During the early 1980s he lectured on and co-ordinated a postgraduate teacher-training course in Mater Dei College. Since the mid-1980s Mooney has lectured on and co-ordinated an evening programme in postgraduate education at UCD.

He qualified as a member of the IGC in 1996 and became a certified member of the Institute of Reality Therapy in 1998. Mooney says: "Notwithstanding the quality of service guidance counsellors can provide their students in the careers area, the real challenge for the profession lies in one-to-one counselling, to those in need, both in education and in the adult world."