If the Job Initiative Programme is closed down as recommended by the notorious McCarthy Report, many will go unemployed and the work of community organisations will suffer.
This is the view of Labour councillor Billy Cameron who has condemned the McCarthy Report recommendation as “short-sighted, ill conceived, and a hostile attack on the most vulnerable of society”.
The Jobs Initiative Programme has been running nationwide since 1996 and Cllr Cameron said the community sector has come to depend on these Job Initiative workers to keep their organisations running.
Such organisations are the Galway Peoples Resource Centre, Galway City Partnership, Simon Community, Aids Help West, Bohermore Community Centre, Age Action, and Threshold.
“Hundreds of people throughout the country who might otherwise have remained on the unemployment register have been gainfully and productively working in their local areas,” he said. “Community organisations attribute the high standard of service they deliver to the assistance of the Job Initiative workers they engage.”
Cllr Cameron will table a motion to the Galway City Council calling for the scheme’s retention. He will also be appealing to the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív to “use all the powers at his disposal” to ensure that this recommendation is not acted upon.
“Clients of these organisations should not be the ones to suffer the most,” said Cllr Cameron. “I will call on him as a humanitarian to ensure that this does not happen and that the scheme remains in place.”
