25 welfare offices to close in Mayo

25 welfare offices to close in Mayo


Swathes of Mayo left with no social welfare service

Edwin McGreal

Twenty-five welfare offices in Mayo will close next week, the Government announced yesterday (Monday).
The Government will close five social welfare offices and 20 community welfare offices across Mayo on Friday, March 15, and centralise these services to five locations. These five centres will be in Ballina, Castlebar, Westport, Achill and Belmullet. A social welfare office in Ballinrobe has survived the cull.
East Mayo and most of south Mayo will be left completely without social welfare offices after the closures.
The five social welfare offices that are to close are in Charlestown, Claremorris, Cong, Kiltimagh and Swinford, with all users of these offices now to be sent to either Ballina or Castlebar. In the case of Charlestown, users there face a 54-mile round trip from the town to Ballina, further still if they are living on the south or east side of the town.
“The fact is they have pulled a cloak over east and south Mayo,” Fianna FΡil TD Dara Calleary told The Mayo News. “Add in court closures, closure of rural schools and east and south Mayo is doing very poorly. You would wonder what they did to this government,” he said.
“The Minister (for Social Protection Joan Burton) has said it [the closures] is part of a rationalisation programme and some of these centres were only open one hour a day, and that now, in the case of Ballina and Castlebar, they will have a five day a week service.
“However, people who tend to need to speak to a Community Welfare Officer in particular are often emergency situations, and we don’t have the public transport in Mayo that people making these decisions seem to think we do,” said Deputy Calleary.
“The Government talks about revitalising rural Ireland and then they do something like this. You’d have to wonder. They clearly haven’t looked at a map of Mayo.
“If it was up to me, I would have a difficulty in taking services away from rural communities at all, but if it had to happen, I would ensure there was at least an office in east and south Mayo with regular opening hours,” he said.
The social welfare offices that are closing in Charlestown, Claremorris, Cong, Kiltimagh and Swinford are each open two days a week in the morning, with the exception of Cong which is open just once a week.
In a letter to Deputy Calleary seen by The Mayo News, Eoin Brown, the Divisional Manager for the western region of the Department of Social Protection, said the centralisation of services was linked to providing greater services in the Pathways to Work Programme at central Intreo offices like the one opened by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny at Davitt House, Castlebar last month.
“The Pathways to Work Programme includes the provision of opportunities, support and assistance to unemployed people by intensifying the department’s level of engagement with them, in particular, those who are, or become, long-term unemployed,” Mr Brown wrote.  “The new Intreo service offers practical, tailored employment services and supports for jobseekers, and this new service model is currently being rolled out across the country.
“Overall, this will result in some re-balancing of resources across the department’s range of activities – payment processing, control and activation – and the relocation of some staff to main centres, primarily Intreo offices, where a full range of services will be available in one location.”
He said if a person is unable to travel to a new clinic, a phone number will be provided or, if required, a staff member would visit the person’s home.
At the opening of the Intreo office in Castlebar, the facility was hailed as a ‘one-stop shop’ for jobseekers, where they can get income supports and employment assistance in the one centre.
Many community welfare officers currently run clinics from HSE Health Centres. They used to fall under the management of the Department of Health but are now under the remit of the Department of Social Protection.
The majority of their work is taken up with the administration of the Supplementary Welfare Allowance Scheme, such as weekly supplementary welfare allowance, rent supplement and back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance.
Twenty of these offices in Mayo will now close and centralised to Intreo offices.
Ballyhaunis, Shrule, Hollymount, Tourmakeady, Ballindine, Ballinrobe and Balla clinics will close, with Castlebar absorb those services. Service users in Ballyhaunis now face a near 60-mile round trip.
Service users in Kilmovee, Kilkelly, Foxford, Crossmolina, Ballycastle and Killala will be moved to Ballina; users in Glenamoy, Bangor Erris and Geesala will move to Belmullet; users in Mulranny and Ballycroy will move to Achill. Users in Newport and Louisburgh moving to Westport.
The majority of these clinics were open once a week for just one or two hours.