UP TO 5,000 jobs have gone in voluntary and community sector organisations as a result of Government funding cuts over the last 12 months or so, a trade union conference heard last night.
The opening session of Impact’s health and welfare divisional conference in Tralee backed calls for resistance to any further cuts in funding for these bodies which provide services for groups such as the unemployed, the homeless, the elderly and those with disabilities.
It also urged that the provision of block grants to voluntary and community bodies be replaced by separate State funding streams for capital, wages and running costs in the various bodies.
Maeve McCarthy–Barrett of Impact’s Cork branch said budgets for voluntary organisations had been reduced by between 18 per cent and 20 per cent last year.
She said a report commissioned last year by Impact had estimated that 5,000 posts in the sector had been lost as a result of the cuts.
Separately, the conference was told that one of the greatest frustrations for staff in the health service has been the never-ending, merry-go-round of structural changes introduced by various governments in recent years.
In her address to delegates, the chairwoman of Impact’s health and welfare division, Sophia O’Reilly, criticised the Government for failing to inform staff of its new plan for reform.
“2011 will see the end of the HSE as we have come to know it. But once again we face major organisational change with no information on how services will be organised. We have not been given a revised plan. There is no clarity about what will replace the HSE or when. We are in the dark about service continuity as the change takes place.”
Ms O’Reilly said the goal posts in the health service were constantly being moved. Staff were informed retrospectively yet were still expected to deliver.
“We have been promised that the future direction of our health service will see the money follow the patient. We must hope that this is not mere aspiration, but a pragmatic approach that will bring about an end to the lunacy of hospitals being penalised for treating patients on demand or for exceeding their budgets to ensure that sick people receive the timely treatment they need.”
Ms O’Reilly told delegates the Croke Park deal was delivering the required savings and reforms. However, it had to continue to do this if it was to survive.
Among the motions to be considered today is a call by the union’s Dublin hospitals branch for Impact to negotiate a pay increase or compensation for its members in view of the savings made by the Government from recent voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes.