Voluntary groups face €20m cut to funding

STAFF at state-aided voluntary bodies face wage cuts of more than €20 million after the Government told the Health Service Executive to press ahead with the cuts, despite the Tánaiste’s assertion they would not be affected.

At the end of last month, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan claimed staff in organisations such as Enable Ireland and Barnardos would not suffer the same percentage of wage cuts as public servants did in the December budget, but correspondence seen by the Irish Examiner shows the cuts are to go ahead.

In one letter, the secretary general of the Department of Health Michael Scanlan tells Brendan Drumm there should be a “corresponding” €21.5m reduction in grants to the agencies.

Mr Scanlan says in the directive to Brendan Drumm – as well as in a letter to Brian O’Donnell, chief executive of the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies – that the deficit should not be found by reducing services to the public.

That means it will have to come from the pockets of employees.

“It is entirely appropriate that Section 39 bodies (grant-aided agencies) and other HSE-funded voluntary providers take appropriate measures to ensure that they continue to provide the same level of service in 2010 as previously notwithstanding the reduction in their funding.”

Mr Scanlan appears to abdicate responsibility to the individual employers for passing on the cuts to staff.

“It is obviously the responsibility of each individual employer to decide exactly what mix of actions should be taken to achieve this goal, to take appropriate legal and other advice, to consult and inform its employees/trade unions as necessary and to manage the HR and industrial relations implications of its decisions.”

The letter to Mr Drumm is dated January 22 while the communication to Mr O’Donnell is dated January 25. The latter was written the day before the Tánaiste told the Dáil that a letter from Mr Drumm instructing agencies to cut the pay of staff in line with budget cuts to public service salaries should not have been posted and should have been withdrawn.

IMPACT trade union which which represents many employees of grant- aided agencies said discrepancies indicated the letter ordering cuts was not sent in error.

“What we understand from this, despite the error which he appears to clarify, is that the letter sent in January by the HSE to the funded agencies was not, as the Tánaiste claimed last week, ‘sent in error’ but rather, it was sent as a result of a very specific instruction by the Department of Health and Children to make reductions commensurate with the reduction in public sector pay,” said Niall Shanahan of IMPACT.

Enable Ireland has told its staff it has been left in a “critical” financial situation and said it has couriered letters to the Departments of Health and Finance, An Taoiseach and Mary Harney requesting political or financial intervention.