Cutbacks in FÁS-supported schemes will cost up to 300 jobs in the Tallaght area of Dublin, a public meeting was told yesterday.
It heard that a computer company which has trained 8,500 people since its establishment 12 years ago may have to close because of cuts to the Community Employment Scheme (CES).
Other projects affecting lone parents, people with disabilities, Travellers and the long-term unemployed are also under threat, the meeting was told.
More than 100 representatives of community and voluntary organisations attended the meeting at Killinarden Enterprise Park in Dublin.
The Government was accused by several speakers of being arrogant and out of touch.
"To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, this Government knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing," said Mr David Byrne, manager of the Clondalkin Enterprise Group.
Ms Ann Devoy, manager of the Syscom computer training company, said the firm had always depended on community employment scheme staff.
Cutbacks to the scheme were affecting it in two ways, she said. They had caused a drop in demand for Syscom's services, as many of those joining community employment schemes received training from the company, and also threatened its ability to recruit staff.
"It looks like a service that's been there for 12 years and has assisted 8,500 people will have to close," she said.
Speakers also challenged the Government's stated view that programmes such as the community employment scheme were becoming less relevant as a result of low unemployment.
They said unemployment was increasing in Tallaght and, in any event, such schemes were designed to assist people with particular needs, not simply those who had lost their jobs.
Ms Jackie Johnson, co-ordinator of the Tallaght Local Employment Service, said the area was losing all of the tools it needed to help people get back on the road to employment.
Tallaght, she said, had developed as a community over the past two decades because groups had come together with the support of such schemes as the CES and job initiative.
"We're losing the infrastructure of Tallaght and the Government is not even offering an alternative," she said.
Mr Tom Carew of the Tallaght ICTU Unemployed Centre, which organised the meeting, said Tallaght was facing between 200 and 300 job losses due to cuts in FÁS's budget.
Jobs were "urgently needed", he said, for the area's 3,145 unemployed, 3,800 lone parents and many people with disabilities who wanted to return to work.
Another speaker from the floor, Ms Tricia Quinn of the Tallaght Lone Parents Centre, said it was losing its job initiative place in May and was down to a single CES place.
The organisation was being squeezed, she said.
"We organised a Christmas party every year for 500 kids. That's just one of the things we do. What's going to happen? Somebody had better tell us," she said.
The meeting was attended by four local Oireachtas members: Mr Pat Rabbitte TD (Labour), Mr Charlie O'Connor TD (Fianna Fáil), Mr Seán Crowe TD (Sinn Féin) and Senator Brian Hayes (Fine Gael).