One in Four group muzzled?

star gazer

Colm O Gorman of the victims of abuse group says that it is either incompetence or something more sinister but the €81,000 funding apparently due has not come to fruition. The department of health is in the spotlight for this. He apparently got a phone call from a third party that basically said sabre rattling by one in four was bringing a level of 'p1ssed-offness' among government officials.

mike65

Just heard this myself...O Gorman's doing the smart thing, making a such a fuss that the Dept of Health and Happyness cant ignore him...aparently a meeting is in the works....fancy that!

Mike.

Go Figure!

If this comes to pass it will be an absolute disgrace!!! The sooner this deceitful, arrogant and selfish government is kicked out of office the better!!!

star gazer

So the group tries to get funding to stay running after three weeks time and the minister thinks it's outrageous for them to speak up for themselves and question openly why agreements aren't being honoured. You'l swear it was €81 million they were looking for. I'm surprised he didn't commision a report to find out if he should pay the eighty one thousand, it could have reported back by 2005!

'it is false and has no foundation' said minister martin


http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/1013/abuse.html

Charity group's criticisms rejected

October 13, 2003

(23:15) The Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, has rejected any suggestion of incompetence or ill-will by his officials that might have led to the decision of abuse representative group, One in Four, to close down from the end of the month.

One in Four's director, Colm O'Gorman, told a news conference the organisation would cease operating at the end of next month, because of a decision of the Department of Health and Children to renege on a commitment to fund its counselling programme.

On RTÉ Radio, the minister defended the department's funding of groups representing the abused, and said he found it hard to accept that One in Four had to close because of financial problems.

He said there might be problems in relation to the group's counselling role but he and his officials were prepared to meet them to discuss these.

Talks may be held later this week

In a statement earlier, the Dept said it hoped to meet representatives of One in Four this week for talks.

It said it had provided €633,000 funding to the organisation since May of last year, of which €425,000 was for One in Four in Ireland and €208,000 was for its organisation in England.

It also said that counselling is provided through the National Counselling Service, at a cost to the Department of €17million since 1999.

Xterminator

So far no evidence has been offered to backup the claims that there funding was withheld for its recent criticisms.

I could release a statement saying i didnt get the last promaotion in work because of age discrimation etc.

But that doesnt make it true.

Perhaps they might release the name of this 3rd party, who could then reveal is source, (or lack thereof) to prove it is anything other than conjecture.

Plenty of organisations like St VDP have critised certain government policys, but still receive government funding. An i'm sure thare are plenty of orgainisations which didnt publicly critise government policy, and have had there budgets cut/stopped.

At the end of the day government spending has to be kept in check, and thats the likely reason for grants levels not being maintained.

X

Victor

There is substantial anecdotal evidence that the only way to get a civil servant to do anything (other than routine) is to harass a minister into making them do it. I've seen it too often.

Originally posted by Xterminator
At the end of the day government spending has to be kept in check, and thats the likely reason for grants levels not being maintained.

Then this is the wrong type of cut being focused on.

star gazer

They got their funding in the end it seems.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/1016/abuse.html

We still don't know why it came to within three weeks of closing for action to happen. I guess that's a debate for another day.