Funding cuts of up to 20% hurting voluntary organisations

FUNDING cuts of up to 20% are forcing grassroots voluntary sector organisations supporting elderly, homeless and disabled people to cut staffing numbers and drastically reducing services to the most vulnerable.

IMPACT trade union’s health and welfare division conference last night heard that one of the reasons the cutbacks were not attracting wider public anger was that workers across the voluntary sector were making huge sacrifices in terms of their working hours and pay in order to keep their organisations going.

Maeve McCarthy-Barrett, branch secretary of IMPACT’s Cork branch, told the conference in Tralee that staff in the sector had forgone increments, taken pay cuts and opted for a shorter working week.