Staff crisis forces jobless to charities
Newly unemployed people are turning to charity because a staffing crisis in the welfare system is holding up payments, it was claimed yesterday.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told the Dail that the community welfare system is "creaking under the strain" due to the large numbers of people turning up at welfare offices and the impact of the Government recruitment and replacement embargo.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen admitted that the growing number of people losing their jobs is placing unprecedented strain on social welfare services.
"Having to turn to the social welfare service for assistance is bad enough but it is even worse if one turns up at a local office on any given week and finds a notice on the window stating there will be no staff present," Mr Gilmore said.
Staff who took sick or were on holidays were not being replaced and queues of unemployed were being left without any assistance.
He claimed he knew of one individual who has failed to get any social welfare payment or any assistance from a community welfare officer since he became unemployed on May 11. "He told me that but for the Society of St Vincent de Paul he would have starved," Mr Gilmore said.
John Monaghan, vice president of St Vincent de Paul, said the only solution is more community welfare officers or another method of dealing with the newly unemployed.
Community welfare officers have told him of grown men breaking down crying when they are told there is nothing that can be done for them.
Suffering
"Some people are entitled to nothing at all. People are suffering," he said. Mr Monaghan also revealed calls to the charity have soared by around 100pc since two years ago.
Mr Cowen accepted that the system was experiencing difficulties but said that 360 staff have been transferred from other departments to the Department of Social and Family Affairs and further transfers will be required.
But Mr Gilmore rejected claims by the Taoiseach that an industrial relations issue over staff transfers was at the core of the crisis and that the issue needed to be dealt with in the context of a social partnership agreement.
- Brian Hutton and Aidan O'Connor
