The Green Party has been urged not to stand behind an An Bord Snip Nua recommendation that would see the closure of 107 family resource centres in the most disadvantaged communities across Ireland.
Mayor of Kilkenny, Malcolm Noonan, and local Green TD, Mary White, met a delegation of voluntary management members from family resource centres in Carlow Kilkenny who stated that their management committees were ‘in a state of shock’ to see a recommendation in the McCarthy report that could only result in the closure of voluntary and community managed and developed centres working with some of Ireland’s most disadvantaged families.
They told Mayor Noonan and Deputy White that the impact of their work with socially marginalised, excluded, and disadvantaged people and families had been cited by the Government until recently as a central plank in its national anti-poverty strategy and as one of the most successful anti-poverty community partnerships the Government had been involved in supporting.
The six family resource centres — Newpark Close FRC, Fr McGrath Centre in Kilkenny, Callan (Droichead ) and Urlingford FRCs from County Kilkenny were joined by Bagenalstown and Tullow (Forward Steps ) family centres in Carlow — are giving the firm message to the Green Party and the Government that they would never be forgiven and would pay a high political price in the polls if they did not stand up and protect the most vulnerable communities in Ireland from these socially savage and ‘economically senseless’ cuts.
Deputy White assured the volunteers that she knew well the work of the family centres in her constituency and knew their importance to local families.
Mayor of Kilkenny Malcolm Noonan said that he rejected the recommended cuts to the vital and necessary anti-poverty and socially important projects running in some of Ireland’s most disadvantaged areas.
