One in Four, the support group for victims of sexual abuse, has accused the Department of Health of pulling the organisation apart "on a whim".
Speaking at a press conference earlier this afternoon, Mr Colm O' Gorman, Director of One in Four, described the decision to cut the organisation's funding as "heartbreaking" and called on the Government to be open about the reasons behind the decision.
Mr O'Gorman was responding to questions regarding a phone-call that a colleague of his had received on September 11th this year from an unidentified person in a Government department, asking him to convey a message to Mr O'Gorman.
The message, he said, was that there was a "certain amount of pissed-offedness" within certain government circles at the organisation.
While Mr O Gorman refused to directly link the phone call to his criticisms of the Government's handling of the Laffoy Commission, he said it could not be ruled out.
The decision to cut their funding was, he said, the result of either "total incompetence" on behalf of the Government, or "it was about ill-will."
He said the caller had told his colleague: "[O'Gorman's ]sabre rattling against Church and State had created a certain level of pissed-offedness [in some circles] . . . and [he's] biting the hand that feeds him."
The same day One in Four received a letter from the Department of Health saying it could not meet its financial commitments to the organisation in particular a sum of €81,000 that it needs to keep its services running until the end of the year.
The Monday following the phone-call, he added, at a meeting in the Department of the Taoiseach, the programme manager in the Department who had been made aware of the contents of the phone-call had confirmed to him that it was likely that he had upset some people in Government and that it would not be unreasonable to believe such an attitude existed in certain circles.
Mr O' Gorman said, however, that the call did not come from that Department and that it had been suggested to him that the call could have originated in either the Department of Justice, the Department of Health, or the Department of Education.
"It is devastating after all the incredible hard work and dedication shown by the 16 staff here at One in Four in establishing this courageous and ground breaking service we have been forced to the point of collapse by the incompetence or worse, the ill will of the Department of Health and Children," Mr O'Gorman said.
"That a service that delivers support to many hundreds of Irish citizens who have been sexually abused could be undermined and destroyed in such a careless and negligent fashion is beyond belief, it certainly suggests that despite their often stated care for victims of abuse this Government has failed to follow promises with action.
"What is of particular concern is that the organisation has now been prevented from playing a role in The Ferns Inquiry into clerical abuse".
All staff at the organisation were given statutory redundancy notices last Thursday, which were also forwarded to the Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment.