THE Minister for Social Welfare is to be asked to intervene in a dispute which threatens the future of a project for a disadvantaged community in Bray, Co Wicklow.
Funding worth £52,000 a year for St Fergal's Resource Centre has been withdrawn by the Department of Social Welfare in the dispute over the composition of its management committee.
The committee says the Department is interfering to an unjustified extent in the affairs of an independent voluntary body.
The Department says the committee failed to keep an agreement to give a number of places to a group which is in dispute with the committee. The Department is backing this group's right to representation.
A committee member pointed to the involvement of a number of members of Democratic Left in the "dissident" group. A spokeswoman for the group said it included supporters of all political parties, including Democratic Left.
At stake is the future of a project providing valuable services for an area of high unemployment and disadvantage. These include:
. An afternoon homework group for children, some of whom have no parent at home who can read.
. A literacy group.
. A welfare rights and information service.
. A planned scheme for teenagers at risk - the project already has built up a relationship with young people in local schools to prepare for the scheme.
. Work for 18 people on a Community Employment scheme.
. An annual summer project for 100 children.
. Participation in community development leadership courses for women in conjunction with other projects.
. Second chance educational courses for women.
The resource centre is located in a local authority house at Old Court Avenue in Bray. It was started in 1988 by the Society of St Vincent de Paul, which has one member on the management committee. The VEC is also represented, as are the workers at the centre. It has been receiving funding from the Department of Social Welfare since 1991.
In recent years a dispute has arisen between the management committee and some women using the services of the centre, who say their attempts to put forward their views on how the centre should promote community development and to get representation on the committee have been blocked.
A report commissioned by Combat Poverty on behalf of the Department of Social Welfare criticises these women for expressing their views "in an aggressive and intimidating manner".
But it also criticises the management committee for disbanding structures which had enabled the women using the centre to put forward criticisms. These included a "house committee" which unsuccessfully attempted to get three of its representatives on to the management committee in 1994.
Since the report, the situation has deteriorated, with the Department backing the dissidents' right to representation.
Mr. Declan O Briain, assistant principal in the voluntary and community services section, states, in an 11 page account of the dispute sent to the centre in July that "the Department cannot justify continued funding of a resource centre that is a source of unresolved conflict in the community".
Told that expanding the committee would breach its constitution, Mr O Briain replied, in a letter, that "from the Department's point of view, it doesn't matter whether this conforms to constitution or not. Reliance on the constitution or rules will not solve this problem and a legalistic approach has contributed to the problems the project faces."
Ms Anita Carroll, a committee member and St Fergal's full time worker, told Tile Irish Times that the centre had been obliged to form a company to qualify for funding from the Department.
"A company must have a constitution," she says. "It's off the wall to say forget about the constitution.
She and a part time worker are about to lose their jobs because the Department has withdrawn funding. Most people who use the centre have little or no interest in the dispute, she says.