Cutbacks threaten welfare services, trade union claims

THE TRADE union Siptu has warned that the community welfare service around the country is being swamped by additional demands caused by the economic downturn and the position for staff is being made worse by recruitment restrictions and cutbacks introduced by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Siptu’s organiser Kevin Figgis said yesterday that the community welfare service needed to be fully resourced to meet the current economic crisis which had seen a dramatic rise in the number of people experiencing serious financial difficulties.

He said the community welfare service needed to be given an exemption from the current employment embargo in the HSE.

“Unless we receive extra resources, as a matter of urgency, many avoidable personal tragedies will occur. It is the least the Government must do to mitigate a crisis for which it is primarily responsible,” he said.

Mr Figgis said that while Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin was creating 115 extra posts to meet increased demand for services in her department, there was no corresponding increase in the number of community welfare officers because the service was governed by the HSE recruitment embargo.

He said that in some parts of the country, other HSE budgetary cutbacks were also affecting the service.

Mr Figgis said that in Kerry, for example, there had been a 14.5 per cent cutback in mileage which reduced access to clients.

In some regions, applications for medical cards rose by 20 per cent between 2007 and 2008, claims for supplementary welfare rose by 45 per cent and claims for mortgage assistance by 70 per cent over the same period, he said.

“Our clients include growing numbers of working poor as well as those finding themselves actually unemployed.

“This is because pay cuts are already affecting the ability of many to make ends meet without ever going on the dole,” Mr Figgis said.

Mr Figgis said the HSE employment embargo did not differentiate or make exceptions to reflect the new realities on the ground. “It is a crude instrument that leaves our members attempting to perform the impossible for increasingly desperate clients,” he added.