A new counselling service is to be made available to recent immigrants from the mainland.

The aim was to take care of problems which might arise when families were reunited after a long time apart, Director of Home Affairs Shelly Lau Lee Lai-kuen told provisional legislators yesterday.

'The young wife may need to go out to work, leaving the old husband with very young kids. Members of a family may each have different problems which general services might not be able to help with all at once. Now, the whole family can be treated as a unit,' Mrs Lau said.