Speaking at a national conference for the community and voluntary sector at Croke Park, Deirdre Garvey, Chief Executive of The Wheel, said such an agreement would guide the interaction between community and voluntary organisations, state departments and agencies when negotiating the creation and delivery of services in key areas such as health, housing and education. She said there is general agreement in the sector that the delivery of improved services, as envisaged in the social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, is being hampered by an inability of existing systems to adapt to the new demands.

“As the economy contracts and unemployment rises, many charities are experiencing a surge in the demand for their services. It is therefore vital that we act swiftly to establish a coordinated approach to overcome the existing inefficiencies in the system,” said Garvey.

Garvey proposed that the new partnership should take the form of an agreement, or comhaontú, setting out the principles that would guide the partnership- between the community and voluntary sector and the State, and a framework that would develop, drive implementation and monitor the agreement.

She added that the proposed partnership framework should also include a new funding system that ensures that community and voluntary organisations recover from the State the full cost of the services they provide – while being provided with multi-annual funding (so they can plan ahead). 

“Charities will play a vital part in maintaining social cohesion while Ireland recovers from the recession. It is therefore critical that Government engage with us to ensure that services are delivered in a coordinated, efficient way; we believe this can best be achieved through the establishment of the proposed partnership framework.” 

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Deirdre Garvey, CEO of The Wheel is available for interview. Contact Gert Ackermann, M: 086 176 9287 E: gert@wheel.ie. Photographs available

ABOUT THE WHEEL:

The Wheel is a national non-profit support and representative body for community, voluntary and charitable organisations. We provide a wide range of support services, information and training to individuals and organisations involved in community and voluntary activity. We represent our sector’s interests in several fora, including the social partnership process.

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