More than 450 voluntary sector jobs could be lost in Northern Ireland as a result of government funding cuts, the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action has warned.
Seamus McAleavey, chief executive of Nicva said the scale of cuts was “unprecedented” in the charity sector’s “relationship with government in Northern Ireland in the last 35 or more years”.
He said Nivca has requested an emergency meeting with ministers to discuss the issue.
“Skilled staff will be lost from our sector and the impact will be felt right across Northern Ireland with a loss of local walking routes, arts events and childcare facilities,” he said. “Voluntary and community organisations provide highly specialized services in areas where government provision doesn’t meet the needs of local people and often work with harder to reach client groups.”
'No consideration'
McAleavey said decisions were being made “unfairly” and would “ultimately rebound and cost the government more in the long run as more expensive options in turn come into play”.
He said that “no real consideration” was being given to the impact on services.
“We believe the view of budget holders is that voluntary and community sector programmes are the easiest and quickest to cut regardless of their value,” he said.
Research by Nicva predicts that 177 jobs will be lost as a result of cuts to the Early Years Fund, a further 130 job losses from environmental cuts, 137 jobs losses from cuts to the European Social Fund (DEL) and a further 17 losses as a result of cuts to other sectors.
Karen Sweeney, director of the Northern Irish charity, Women’s Support Network said funding cuts would result in the loss of 56 full time posts and more than 140 part-time posts across the women’s sector. She said that 4,192 women would lose out on local childcare and pathways to employment training as a result.
“The women’s sector has been significantly affected by the cuts imposed across departments,” she said. “Cuts are being made to all services and this will have wide ranging, long lasting effects in terms of supporting vulnerable families, those with mental health issues, tackling unemployment, reducing child poverty and the provision of accessible childcare.”
Siobhán Fitzpatrick, chief executive of Early Years - the organisation for young children which administers the Department of Education’s early years fund said: “This is a very worrying time for parents and staff in early years settings. We fully appreciate the difficult economic decisions that have to be made but early years is not the right area to target.
“The impact of this on 153 communities, 2,500 children and 177 jobs across Northern Ireland will be devastating in the short and long term.”
