`Every square inch of space around here is used," says Father Michael Mernagh as he sprints around the South Inner City Community Development Association's (SICCDA) headquarters in The Liberties area of Dublin. He isn't joking. "This Centre Rejects Racism" proclaims a poster on the wall of the tiny office provided for the African Refugee Network. In another room, a circle of chairs indicates the area set aside as a makeshift meeting point for members of the growing Society of Russian Speakers in Ireland.
Upstairs is Exchange House, offering support to Traveller families, and in the basement the all-too-busy offices of the Money Advice and Budgeting Services (MABS) provides help to local families in the grasp of money lenders. Alongside this, SICCDA itself provides an ongoing programme of training for local adults and young people, an emergency call system for the elderly, as well as the annual Liberties festival. SICCDA's treasurer, Nell Carley, who has worked with the association for 18 years, says Father Mernagh can be credited with the fact that so much good work is happening under one roof.
"None of this would have happened only for Michael. There were a lot of willing hands in the area before he came but we didn't have the expertise," she says. "Michael has a vision like no one, to be truthful. He never sees the work part of it. He just has that way about him, you don't give up and you don't say no."
Nell says Father Mernagh should be publicly recognised for his work. Instead, he has set up the Social Inclusion Millennium Awards scheme to acknowledge other people's contributions to the community and voluntary sector. The prize-giving ceremony will take place in Dublin Civic Offices next Wednesday - Budget night, as he points out. He's hoping that there will have been good news for the socially disadvantaged earlier that day. "We always had an awareness that we needed to be in solidarity with other groups across Dublin, Ireland and abroad. So when it came to asking what SICCDA should do for the millennium we felt the only way to mark the struggle we had been involved in was to recognise other people's struggles," he says.
"You can't work for justice here and ignore injustice elsewhere."
Born in Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, Father Mernagh was one of the few young people in his area to go on to further education. "When I was a young guy I experienced poverty myself and I felt I always wanted to make a contribution, if I could, to helping people help themselves. My life has been focused on that," he says. He joined the Augustinian Order in 1956 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1963. "There was a particular culture in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s, which is difficult to understand now, that led so many to join the church. So many young people with a lot of energy were part of this great missionary movement of the 20th century," he says.
During his last three years of training for the priesthood he worked as a volunteer with Opera Nomadi, a gypsy self-help organisation operating in the slums of Rome.
After his ordination he moved to Paris to work as a volunteer with Pieds Noirs, helping French Algerian refugees living in transit camps in the Parisian suburbs. From there, he went to Nigeria, where he initially provided rather antiquated training programmes in religious instruction for village leaders.
In the late 1960s, he studied community development in Manchester. This period of study revolutionised his attitude to his work in Nigeria.
"Until that time the emphasis had been on taking in young lads to act as catecheticals which was not a success, in fact it was disastrous," he said.
Under a new scheme put together by Father Mernagh, "they went back to the village and became leaders in their local church but also in better farming, childcare, crafts, house building, a whole range of skills".
Father Mernagh returned to Ireland in the mid-1970s to tackle poverty in his own country. In Donegal, he helped break the monopoly certain established families had over cottage industries in the county.
"In Donegal the knitting needles are called poverty sticks because whole families depended on them," he explains. Many of the women were not being paid decent money for their meticulous work, yet felt they had to accept the small amounts offered by those who controlled the industry.
He encouraged the women of Annagry, north of Dungloe, to form a knitters' co-op, and soon they were buying their own wool and dividing the profits fairly.
"The guys who controlled the industry didn't like it," he says.
He then came to Dublin to set up SICCDA and says that his work on social exclusion has never stopped.
Now he focuses on the problems faced by refugees and asylum-seekers in the area.
"As a society unfortunately we've had next to no experience of receiving people from outside, and whenever we have, we've made it a hard struggle for them.
"The tragedy of our approach to them at Government policy level is to not give them something worthwhile to do in employment. A lot of professional people here can't work. They feel useless and psychologically that's very depressing."
Father Mernagh thinks the difficulty of absorbing foreigners into Irish society will eventually be ironed out, and Irish people will learn to accept refugees and asylum seekers.
However, he thinks the position of Travellers in Irish society is getting worse. Now that Travellers are rarely seen mending pots or tarmacadaming driveways, their role in Irish society has diminished, he says. "In the old days they had a status or economic function but that day is gone. They're not seen as economically viable, they're seen as a burden."
Despite the economic prosperity of recent years, Father Mernagh thinks there is a place for groups such as SICCDA in the new society.
"The gap is still there and widening. Of course things have improved but there's always that question, does a rising tide lift all boats? Some boats are still very much on the rocks.
"Our struggle will still go on given our imperfect society and corrupt society. There'll always be work for people like ourselves."
