Poorest communities face chop (Already in 2009 we've been well-snipped)

Are you angry over the Government's Bord Snip proposals? Communities are going to get royally shafted. What's to be done about it? Tell us what you think.

The anger has already spilled into comments beneath the 'Minister refuses to meet us...' posting below. For instance, anonymous said...
"Save us! Bord snip, 44m in community cuts! Rapid gone. CE scheme decimated. Areas left to rot. What a joke. Shame on all involved with these cuts. We'll be back to the horror days of the 80s with bag snatching, heroin epidemics, no go areas etc. Oh give me strength."

July 16, 2009 12:15 PM

Minister of State responsible for Community Affairs, John Curran refuses to meet community reps

The Minister of State John Curran has refused to meet with the national body for 180 CDPs, the National Community Development Forum (NCDF).

In a letter to us, dated 1^st July, 2009, Minister Curran's private secretary Alan Kelly wrote:

"I refer to your letter dated 23^rd June 2009 on behalf of the National Steering Group of the Community Development Programme requesting a meeting with Minister of State John Curran T.D. I regret to inform you that Minister Curran is not in a position to meet with the group at this time.

"You are aware from previous correspondence issued by the Department, that, as with many Government Programmes and initiatives, the economic realities reflected in the recent supplementary budget allocations inevitably mean that the amount of funding available for the Community Development Programme will be considerably less in 2009 than in recent years.

"The Department is aware that this will present significant challenges for community development projects..."

The NCDF will issue a formal statement on this matter shortly, but it is safe to say the NCDF is disappointed the Minister of State with responsibility for Community Affairs declined the opportunity to meet people representing volunteer projects in the most disadvantaged communities in the State and to hear their voice.

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Community projects overwhelmingly endorse SIPTU campaign

Here's the latest (positive!) developments arising from national meetings held in Dublin on Wed., July 1, by SIPTU's Community Section and also the national CDP body - the National Community Development Forum (NCDF).   

Both groups focused their attention on the cuts to CDPs in particular and worked out plans of action. A SIPTU campaign begins immediately.   

SIPTU's meeting was its first specifically for CDPs nationwide. Close to 200 people attended from around the country. Unusually for a trade union, both management and staff attended because they share common ground over the issue of Government cutbacks.   

The NCDF meeting was holding its 2nd meeting and agreed without hesitation to endorse the SIPTU campaign. More notes from the NCDF meeting will follow in a later posting. Here's what arose from the SIPTU meeting on the morning of July 1st.

  

* * * * * 

The PURPOSE of the SIPTU meeting was: 

1. To establish a SIPTU / CDP national action committee. 

2. To identify key actions and get cracking immediately at local and national level with a campaign against the CDP cuts and the treatment of projects by the Department.  

*DISCUSSION/ACTIONS:* 

Yesterday highlighted that the CDPs are the projects most severely hit with cuts in the sector. One of the reasons for the severity of the cut is that we do not yet have a strong national voice to address issues when they arrive...especially at a Union level.... 

1. SIPTU have agreed to allocate Resources (including 4 workers starting on the ground immediately) to promote and develop national action campaign for the CDPs. 

2. SIPTU Representative at a national level Gerry Flanagan is meeting with "high level official group" ( not sure of title of group). At this meeting SIPTU will be addressing CDP cuts etc.... 

3. SIPTU Recognises that whatever actions are taken that it would support both staff and management and they recognise that while we are employed by local voluntary management committees the department are really the ones " calling the shots" on how management committees implement cuts at local level. 

4. Other discussion items included - department correspondences and individual project situations in relation to the cuts....etc...... 

5. A national SIPTU/CDP action committee was set up yesterday. 

6. Following the SIPTU meeting, the National Community Development Forum (NCDF) met and endorsed the SIPTU campaign.   

Note: Both the SIPTU action committee and the national CDP body are well and truly off the ground now.   

Sin e in brief.   

Your campaign support in the coming months will be very welcome.

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First blog posting of the new National Community Development Forum (NCDF)

This is the first blog posting of the new National Community Development Forum (NCDF). More will appear shortly.

To date, two national programmes supporting our poorest communities have been hit with savage cuts. The first is the National Drugs Strategy. Secondly, there is the Community Development Programme which funds 180 Community Development Projects in the poorest parts of Ireland. The twin-effect of these cuts on poor people is life-destroying.t specifically f

This BLOG comes from people involved in Community Development throughout the country as we stand up for our communities rights to fair play. The Government is playing a card-game with people's lives. Cutting funding to the poorest communities just because they are (perceived as) too weak to protest makes crude political sense, but is as morally repulsive as closing children’s hospital wards.

Our 180 Community Development Projects will not see out the year if the cutbacks continue. So, we’re now getting very organised.

- Our CDPs have united and organised themselves nationally. First time ever we set up an independent body for the projects. Widespread support for our work. Huge potential to speak up for and with the voiceless and vulnerable. We'll be heard at local and national level and we are here to stay.

- The workers and voluntary management committees have organised under SIPTU. Yes, employers and staff united on an issue and supported by a trade union. The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has pushed projects too far with cuts by email and decrees demanding for instance that projects stop networking. There will be action at local at national level, starting up very very shortly.

BACKGROUND:

So - what's the background?

The Community Development Programme was established in 1990 to tackle huge challenges in Ireland’s 'poverty and unemployment blackspots'. People in these areas were dismissed by many so-called educated people as being too lazy to work. Those who criticised the poor overlooked barriers to work that effect women, lone parents, people who were failed by the school system, people with disabilities, and people in rural areas without cars (to mentions but a few people facing barriers).

Over the last 19 years, volunteers in these communities have made a real difference nationally by managing our 180 projects and working to lift the barriers. The work counteracted many of the effects of poverty on people, and also aimed to challenge the causes of poverty and discrimination.

Though funded by Government, the projects have been steered in recent years by Government away from work that might challenge Government policies at national level. They prefer us to provide and manage services in communities (training, creche, FAS schemes, etc) than to empower people to participate in society. It appears that the Government wants us to manage the poor, to keep the lid on things, and not to be ‘rabbiting-on’ about the deep-rooted structural causes of poverty and inequality.

CURRENT SITUATION - POOREST COMMUNITIES LOSING OUT FASTEST:

There are 2000 volunteers (many prefer the term ‘activists’) in our 180 projects, some of the finest people in Ireland. But - on top of political pressure to conform, the savage 20%-plus cutbacks are forcing the volunteer managers to pull back on the work they engage their staff to do.

The Department is trying to manage the projects by email dikdats, issing new rules like decrees and making financial demands that are forcing projects into impossible situations. There is the possibility that many projects are now – in a legal sense – trading recklessly. Who wants to be a volunteer manager and company director in these circumstances?

If the volunteers leave bit by bit, the projects will collapse in ones and twos and the Programme will vanish without trace. It might suit Government politically and financially but it would be a disaster for disadvantaged communities. If the current policy continues to be pursued, the Government will succeed in shutting down the core community infrastructure in Ireland’s poorest parts.

€20 MILLION ANNUALLY IS NOT BIG MONEY!

The national Programme can get by on €20 million, small change in the scheme of things and great value for money (Reference: Nexus Report 2000, ERN Report 2003).

But if the Community Development Programme is done away with, the Government will have destroyed 20 years of hard. Imagine seeing closed-up or unused community centres in the areas of greatest deprivation - what a poison that would be.

Neither the project staff nor the voluntary management committees accept being party to cutbacks that condemn deprived communities to oblivion for years to come. Volunteers are also gutted to see other national programmes cut, education cuts, welfare cuts, etc – on top of job losses heading for 50% in disadvantaged areas.

COMMUNITIES UNITED BEHIND CAMPAIGN

As stated, the projects recently set up a National Community Development Forum (NCDF) to represent themselves and their communities.

The projects also meet in clusters and at regional level. Staff and management are today often paying the networking costs themselves as project budgets have been so drastically reduced.

Currently there are 2000 volunteers involved and 300 or so staff engaged across the country in the Programme. All are committed to their communities and we are lobbying the Government to see fit to continue to support the projects, management and staff in the Programme.

GOVERNMENT SHOULD SUPPORT, NOT PENALISE, THE POOR

Pulling drugs-funding and community-supports from disadvantaged communities is counter-productive and the cost of killing off the Programme in human, financial and societal terms will far outweigh any savings.

We'll have a measure of the cost of cutbacks so far in a new posting.

As many formerly middle-class people are driven into poverty and social welfare dependency, we need to invest imagination and continued funding into our increasingly hard-stretched communities.

The Government should ideally support the poor as the poor fight the notion that they should bear the brunt of the costs of a recession.