Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

The policy being pursued in respect of the abolition of the CLÁR and RAPID programmes has directly contributed to the loss of 11,150 front-line jobs in the community and voluntary sector. The staff who occupied those jobs served deprived communities throughout the country. In 2012 Brian Harvey presented his report, "Downsizing the Community Sector" to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. Said report showed that the contraction in the sector - on foot of a policy introduced by the previous Government and continued by the current Administration - would lead to 11,150 direct jobs in the community and voluntary area being lost by the end of this year and that by 2015 a total of 17,000, or one third of the total number of jobs in the sector, will have been lost. As already stated, these are front-line jobs which are occupied by those who serve deprived communities. All of this is happening at a time when-----

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