Robinson calls for rethink on cuts to equality budget

FORMER president Mary Robinson has led calls on the Government to reconsider its controversial decision to dramatically slash the budget of the Equality Authority which led to the resignation of its chief executive officer, Niall Crowley on Thursday.

The decision was also condemned by Green party TD, Ciarán Cuffe who said the minor government coalition party was seriously concerned that Mr Crowley had felt obliged to resign his position.

Mr Cuffe said: “Equality cannot be seen as a luxury with which we dispense when funds are low.”

Mr Crowley’s resignation was greeted yesterday with anger and dismay by a large number of opposition parties, trade unions, equality groups and other non-governmental organisations.

Ms Robinson, the former UN high commissioner for human rights, expressed regret at the Government’s decision to impose “very savage cuts” on the budget of the Equality Authority, as well as the Irish Human Rights Commission which has also seen its annual funding reduced by 25%.

The former president said she hoped the Government would reconsider the issue of funding to bodies which played such an important role in Irish public life and Irish democracy.

In his resignation letter, Mr Crowley said the minister’s decision to cut the authority’s funding by 43%, combined with the continuing decentralisation of its staff to Roscrea, had made his position untenable.

Mr Crowley said the Equality’s Authority’s work had been fatally compromised by the Department of Justice’s budgetary strategy which he believed had made it unviable as an organisation. He claimed Mr Ahern’s explanation that the budgetary cutbacks on the Equality Authority were due to the Government’s decision to prioritise the allocations of his department’s resources towards tackling crime was “simply not credible”.

Instead, Mr Crowley said he believed the Equality Authority had been deliberately targeted by the minster because it was seen as a threat to senior civil servants and the Government because of its history of investigating allegations of discrimination in the public sector.

“It would further appear that the independent voice of the Equality Authority has had to be silenced for becoming an awkward witness to the inequality and discrimination in our society,” he remarked.

Mr Crowley expressed concern that experienced staff would be lost as a result of the decentralisation.

Mr Ahern’s refusal to accept the authority’s proposal to delay the transfer of staff to Roscrea and to only cut its budget by 32% was “most disappointing,” said Mr Crowley.

Yesterday Pavee Point, the national Traveller organisation, said Mr Crowley’s resignation represented “a dark and worrying day for equality and rights in Ireland”.

Fine Gael’s justice spokesperson, Charlie Flanagan, observed that it was ironic that the office charged with protecting the vulnerable had itself been victimised by the Government.