Irish Autism Action chief seeks to tackle concerns over cut to outreach service

The newly appointed chief executive of Irish Autism Action (IAA) says he is seeking to put to rest concerns voiced by service users after it cut an outreach service due to a lack of resources.

The IAA will hold a public meeting today in Dublin’s Red Cow Inn, at which people will have a chance to address any concerns to CEO Brian Murnane.

Mr Murnane said yesterday that the meeting was arranged last week “as the best way to address questions raised on social media”.

“The purpose of meeting people is to help them understand what we do with the money we raise: People will then decide themselves if we have used funds responsibly or not,” he said.

“They cannot reach that conclusion either way, unless we are transparent.”

In a Facebook post last week, the IAA outlined the services it provides. They include a helpline; individual and national advocacy; and provision of specific support to various groups.

However, the IAA said: “We have had to reduce the number of people receiving one particular kind of support, behavioural outreach. This was the only area where we did receive State support, from the HSE.

“However, the funding we received had to be supplemented from our fundraised income in order to provide the service. It became clear to the board of the charity that this situation could not continue so we informed the HSE and reduced the number of families we were supporting in this fashion from seventeen to two.

“We have since commenced discussions with the HSE regarding a revised financial model that would allow us to return to providing those supports more widely.”

There has been sustained criticism on the IAA Facebook page and elsewhere regarding the reduction in behavioural outreach, and general queries about how the IAA has been using the resources at its disposal.

Yesterday, the IAA said that its audited accounts from 2010-14 are available to view at its website, autismireland.ie.

“We find the quantum of the need in society does not correlate to the funds generated, it has been our experience that certain fundraising channels have become less productive than before,” said Mr Murnane, pointing to examples such as black tie balls and charity auctions.

“Strategically, charities need to identify new ways to earn sustainable income to survive, which is a challenge. We receive no State funding — except for the HSE contribution to one specific service, to which we also contribute heavily. To that extent, all of the income decline in recent years is due to fundraising declines, which have affected most if not all charities.”

Mr Murnane said that the cutbacks in behavioural outreach are temporary, admitting that there are “more gaps in public services than we or any charity, can fill”.

He said: “We stated that pending an agreement with HSE that allows us to resume that service fully, we will readily do so.

“We only restricted the programme because the supplementary cost we incurred to hire the highly skilled staff required to deliver the service was greater than our fundraised income could support.”