IMPACT CONFERENCE:ABOUT 5,000 jobs will be lost in the community and voluntary sector by the end of this year as a result of Government cutbacks, the biennial delegate conference of the union Impact has heard.
Margaret Coughlan of the union's Wicklow HSE branch said the projected scale of the job losses had been set out in a consultancy report commissioned by Impact.
She said there were some 6,100 voluntary and community organisations in Ireland, employing over 53,000 people. The estimated value of the sector to the economy was €6.5 billion, while the State provided funding of €1.9 billion.
Ms Coughlan said this year budgets for voluntary and community organisations were being slashed by between 18 per cent and 20 per cent.
The Harvey report, commissioned by the union, had found that while the cuts were lower in social and health services, they were much higher in the area of community development.
She said the report estimated that 5,000 jobs - or almost 10 per cent of the workforce in the community and voluntary sector - would go by the end of the year.
"It may be the case that those who put their faith in McCarthy feel that quiet despair in disadvantaged communities won't cost them too many votes. We must not allow them that comfort."
Ms Coughlan said inflicting cuts on the community and voluntary sector represented "nothing less than a betrayal of everything that they have achieved".
The conference passed a motion deploring the failure of the Government to enact promised legislation governing trade union representation rights and to ban victimisation against those joining unions.
Joe May of the Ialpa branch of the union, which represents airline pilots, said under the Towards 2016 transitional agreement, signed in autumn 2008, the Government had given a commitment to put such legislation in place by the middle of last year.
The Department of Enterprise said this month that work was not under way on these commitments and its priority was three pieces of legislation in the employment area which were being finalised.