SOCIETY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL offices around the country are reporting continued increases in the number of people calling to seek help. The regions with the largest cities have reported an increase in their calls. The Dublin Regional Office ha received 15,557 requests for help from individuals and families since the start of the year until the end of July. People who never requested assistance before accounted for 27% of calls, while almost two-thirds of all callers were reliant on a social welfare payment of one kind or another. There were big percentages of the calls from lone parent families, from families with children and 14% of callers were living alone.
According to John-Mark McCafferty, Head of Social Justice and Policy at SVP Ireland, most requests were asking for a visit, food vouchers and assistance with energy and other bills. Other problems for callers included barriers to accessing social welfare payments, requests for help with the cost of household goods such as furniture and bedding and people just struggling to get by on a low income. While the main needs of callers and their profile seems mostly unchanged in the past 12 months, some new issues have come to light, including delays in accessing social welfare and the impact of recent job losses.
* For more information on this news item see the text of the address by John-Mark McCafferty, to the Merriman Summer School on this website.