Madam, - I wish to correct the misinformation on the closure of the Carmichael Centre disseminated by the Minister of State Noel Ahern (The Irish Times, June 18th).
The Carmichael Centre is open six days a week - from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays. It is home to 45 charities and provides essential services such as training and legal advice to 400 organisations in total. Nine employees staff this entire organisation, which could hardly be called a "bureaucracy", to use the Minister's word.
The future of the vast majority of the charities in the centre is now utterly uncertain. It is unfortunately not "nonsense", as the Minister claims, that the centre is insolvent and is closing its doors on July 9th.
These charities provide essential services to the elderly living alone, children in hospital, sufferers of Parkinson's disease and motor neurone disease, to mention but a few of the 400,000 people whom the charities collectively reach each year. All of their services are now in jeopardy as a result of the refusal by the Department of Community, Local and Gaeltacht affairs to provide €150,000 a year to the centre. Compare this with the €60 million squandered in the electronic voting debacle, which did not result in any censure for the parties involved.
It is important to recognise that the failure to fund the Carmichael Centre is part of an overall strategy by the Government to disempower and disenfranchise the ordinary people of this country, particularly those who might raise dissident voices against Government policy. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN O'SHAUGHNESSY, Upper Sherrard Street, Dublin 1.