Thomas Dunlea

Fr Thomas Vincent Dunlea, OBE (19 April 1894 – 22 August 1970) was an Irish-Australian Catholic priest known for his involvement in charitable works.

[2] Some of his appointments were: In 1938, while ministering to homeless families sheltering in the Royal National Park, a young boy ran up to Fr Tom, as he was known by then, asking him to come to his mother.

Father Tom at once went to the woman, who he found desperately ill. She knew her time was near and begged the young priest to care for her son after she died, as she had no one else to leave him with.

[6][7] In the late 1940s Fr Tom was working among alcoholics with Dr Sylvester Minogue and Archibald McKinnon, a psychiatric nurse, of the Darlinghurst Reception House.

The pioneer Alcoholics Anonymous group met in the Boys' Town city office, and at other locations found by Fr Tom.

In 1952 he went to Hurstville as parish priest, devoting much of his time to A.A., and a new organization for people with psychiatric problems, Recovery Group, as well as to his usual menagerie of stray animals.

Chris Riley started a detox centre, he named it the Dunlea Adolescent Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Program.