Mattie McGrath warned that closures and service changes to Social Welfare and Community Welfare offices are cutting vulnerable people off from vital face-to-face support and criticised the move to call banks. He said physical contact is vital for people in bad situations and urged the minister with community responsibility to maintain in-person clinics and home visits.
Service changes reported
McGrath described how Social Welfare Officers and Community Welfare Officers, who used to visit villages and run local clinics, are being moved to a system where contact is routed through a call bank. He said some offices, including in his county, are due to stop direct contact next week and that calls may be logged but not returned by Community Welfare Officers.
Impact on vulnerable people
He stressed that these officers did a great job during Covid and are an important part of resourcing vulnerable people. McGrath warned that replacing local, physical contact with remote call-centre arrangements shuts off a vital lifeline for those in difficult situations.
Government response
A respondent in the debate acknowledged the work of Community Welfare Officers and said the intent is to move towards a more efficient service with greater use of telephone and electronic communications. The respondent added that in-person clinics and home visits would still be provided where necessary and said they would notify the minister and ask for a direct reply, while noting they were not across all the details.
Call for ministerial action
McGrath urged the minister with community responsibility to look after vulnerable people and to reconsider changes that channel support through impersonal call centres rather than maintaining local, face-to-face access.
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The Social Welfare Officer and the Community Welfare Officer were a very, very important part and are a very important part of resourcing people, vulnerable people. Now offices, including in my own county next week, are stopping their contact totally. They used to be in the villages, come to the villages, then they would not refer to their offices ever before Covid. Now you have to make a call to a call bank and that bank will be logged, or the call will be logged and the Community Welfare Officer may ring you back or may not. People go to these officers who do a great job, and they did a great job during Covid as well, and so did the local officers and the staff, for help, vulnerable people, and it has been shut off from them. The Minister for Social Welfare has Community Rule in her title as well, so you need to look after these people, they are vulnerable, and we cannot have these kinds of changes ringing into a call centre, and you might get a call back if you are waiting on the phone. Physical contact is vital for people who are vulnerable in bad situations. Thanks Deputy, and I agree with you, the Community Welfare Officers around the country do a really excellent job in helping people at a time when they need help the most. My understanding is what they are trying to do is to move towards a more efficient service, that involves greater use of the telephone, greater use of electronic communications, but we will still provide for in-person clinics where necessary, and even home visits on occasion, but I am not across all the detail of that, so I will certainly let Ms Humphreys know that it was raised and ask her to come back to you directly. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
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