4,500 jobs at risk €80m cut for social schemes

COMMUNITY and voluntary organisations are in crisis, with more than €80 million in direct state support to be removed from the sector this year.

Amid claims the Government is zoning in on the community and voluntary sector more than other areas, the cuts could result in at least 4,500 job losses.

It is estimated many more millions of euro to be channelled into the sectors by the HSE will also be lost.

The cuts include €6m from schemes dealing with educational disadvantage; a 70% drop in funding for sports in disadvantaged areas (from €1m); over €30m taken from childcare programmes and the funding of the RAPID scheme for development of urban areas with socioeconomic problems cut by a quarter.

The HSE has failed to release data on specific cuts.

Commenting on the crisis Community Workers Co- operative national coordinator Ann Irwin states that “core service providers are being forced to close or massively reduce provision”.

This is resulting in key supports for the elderly, children and other vulnerable groups in economically deprived areas being lost.

Dublin city councillor Cieran Perry (Ind) said the cuts “are not an attempt to address flaws in the system. They are simply a bean counting exercise to appear to be cutting expenditure”.

The cuts are leading to job losses but Government funding agency Pobal is refusing to engage with the state’s industrial relations machinery concerning redundancies.

SIPTU community sector organiser Gerry Flanagan said recent funding cuts and Pobal intransigence has “demoralised” the sector.

Mr Flanagan highlighted the failure to restore funding to a community development project (CDP) in the Ballymun area despite an appeal panel finding the three reasons given by Pobal for its closure were “incorrect”.

Links of leading figures in community sector funding bodies to Fianna Fáil have led to accusations of a politically motivated approach.

Community Minister Pat Carey, whose department’s funding for schemes will be cut by €27m this year, emphasised the “serious efforts to tackle poverty and disadvantage through partnership with all stakeholders”.

“In these challenging times we will continue to back dynamic groups and individuals in our society as they develop new and imaginative ways of addressing the difficulties experienced in communities,” he said.

However, social researcher Brain Harvey, who estimates the cuts will result in at least 4,500 job losses, believes the Government is targeting the community and voluntary sector more than others.

“The headline figure for the reduction of funding in the voluntary and community sector is in the range of 9% to 10% during 2010. This figure contrasts with the national budgetary cut of only 1.8%,” he said.

“The view that the voluntary and community sector has been identified for disproportionate attention in cuts is not a polemic, but a factual observation.”