Experienced charity worker expresses concern over State’s ‘gradual disengagement’ from working with poor

An experienced charity worker in Cork has expressed serious concern over "the gradual disengagement" of State services from working with the poor, as he revealed that he had received letters from men contemplating suicide and asking for help for their families after their deaths.

Brendan Dempsey, regional vice-president of St Vincent de Paul in Cork, said that successive governments had introduced policies that had lessened the State's ability to help those in poverty, resulting in charities such as his being forced to take up the slack.

"I would make the point, as far as I'm concerned for the last number of governments, I have watched the State gradually disengage itself from the people, from a large number of our own people. They are not helping people who are living in desperation," he said in an interview with The Irish Times.

Mr Dempsey said people who were formerly self-employed but whose businesses had collapsed in the downturn, were particularly vulnerable as they had to wait in some cases for up to two years before they qualified for jobseeker’s allowance.

“I’m seeing a level of desperation among people now that I have never seen before in my 30 odd years with the St Vincent de Paul, and it’s not from people who have spent their lives living at the bottom of the social ladder, living on social welfare,” he said.

“It’s from people who are well-educated, hard-working, who have been very successful in their lives, and the staff working in social welfare are so distraught over these cases that they are coming to us on many occasions, asking us can we help families because they are tied up with red tape.”

Mr Dempsey said among the most shocking developments he had encountered over the past two years had been cases of men writing to him, to inform him that they were about to kill themselves and asking the St Vincent de Paul to care for their families.

He said he had received four such letters in the past 18 months and in three cases, the men had taken their own lives before he received their letter; however in one case the man had not yet killed himself and the St Vincent de Paul was able to save him.

“I never got letters like these before . . . As it happens, in all four cases they had all been self-employed and had no income from the State. They had applied for jobseeker’s allowance as they are entitled to, but they could be waiting 15 months or two years for that to come through.

"They were all first-timers to me and to the organisation. We had never met them before – they were all middle- aged men and each would have been considered highly successful by their neighbours and by their communities, but they became victims of the Celtic Tiger going belly-up."

He said that last year St Vincent de Paul spent more than €8 million helping families in need in Cork city and county.

"We estimate that we are going to pay out €1 million more than what we take in but figures mean nothing to us any more – it's just a case of you get up in the morning and try to keep going."
The Samaritans can be contacted on 1850 609 090. Console, the national suicide charity, can be reached on 1800 201890