MORE THAN 2,000 people took to the streets of Limerick yesterday in protest over proposed cuts to family support services.
The city centre was brought to a standstill when community groups from across Munster marched through the streets to voice their anger, in particular over the McCarthy report which calls for many community-based schemes to be cut.
Representatives from community development programmes, network groups for women, family resource centres and community childcare facilities in Kerry, Cork, Clare, Tipperary and Limerick took part in yesterday’s event, along with a number of Siptu branches from across the region.
Siptu sector organiser Eddie Mullins from Cork said the abolition of community networks would lead to the loss of 6,000 jobs.
“These cuts will rip the fabric of the community apart to the very core. The services provided to the elderly, to children, to youth service and to families throughout the region will be in serious jeopardy if these cuts are implemented.”
Mairead Hanrahan from Tralee Women’s Resource Centre took part in the march.
“We are here because we are a community development project and we are facing a 64 per cent cut, so some of us are not going to survive and we all do great work in the communities,” she said.
Paddy Flannery, manager of the Moyross Community Enterprise Centre in Limerick, said that the services provided by the groups at risk were the most “difficult to provide”.