Union fears 'significant’ job losses in community sector

The SIPTU trade union fears there could be job losses in community development groups as a result of Government plans to merge these organisations with county councils.

There are 52 partnership and LEADER companies across the country, including Westmeath Community Development and Roscommon Integrated Development Company (RIDC).

Environment Minister Phil Hogan is planning to 'align’ these local development groups with local authorities, and a steering group has been established to implement this change before the end of 2014.

SIPTU, which represents many of the workers in the sector but is not represented on the steering group, is concerned that administrative staff and other employees in the development companies could be made redundant as part of the process.

This would be due to the potential duplication of roles among council staff and development company workers. And there are fears that town council staff could be moved into the administrative roles in development companies around the country when they are abolished in 2014.

“The Minister himself has said that there will be job losses as a result of this, but we don’t know the extent of the redundancies because he won’t talk to us and his Department won’t talk to us,” SIPTU’s Community Sector Organiser, Eddie Mullins, told the Westmeath Independent.

He pointed out that funding cuts at South Kerry Development Partnership Ltd had recently resulted in four job losses and this could be a sign of things to come.

“At the moment the staff (in development companies) are obviously very worried. They have done a terrific job and are seen as standard bearers for other LEADER programmes across Europe. They are looked upon as leading lights by other EU member States and yet the Minister is intent on dismantling them.

“This is going to take away the 'bottom up’ approach that has been in place and replace it with a 'top down’ approach. It will be a complete reversal of the way things have been working.

“Nobody is against alignment. Nobody is against working together and doing things better, but what’s happening here is a complete takeover by the local authorities,” said Mr Mullins.

He added that SIPTU was prepared to work with the Minister and would be consulting with its members about how best to represent their interests during this alignment process.

Michael Spellman, the chairman of RIDC, said Roscommon was one of ten areas selected for 'pilot projects’ as part of the alignment process, however details of when this pilot will begin are not yet available.

He said RIDC did not have any discussions with the Department as yet regarding possible job implications resulting from the process.