Alcohol treatment centre staff ‘paid to sit at home’

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Staff that were hired to operate the city’s long-awaited community-based alcohol treatment centre have been left sitting at home for the past three months as the HSE failed to secure a suitable location, the Galway City Tribune has learned.

The centre, which is set to replace a facility that was destroyed by an arson attack in 2013, has been funded by Government since June of this year, with €225,000 allocated for the last six months of 2020.

This was in addition to €470,000 secured at the end of 2019 to fund the service from 2021 onwards.

Chairperson of Addiction Counsellors Ireland, Seán Harty, told the Galway City Tribune that the lack of progress being made by the health service was ‘absolutely soul destroying’ for his colleagues, for addicts seeking help, and for the GPs that were currently trying to support addicts in a city with no services available to them.

“This has been funded for the last six months. There was to be a staff of five recruited and the successful candidates were informed in October that they had the job – to my knowledge, at least four of the five positions have been filled.

“All they need now is a premises. The money has been given to the HSE on a plate and they’ve done nothing with it,” said Mr Harty.

(Photo: The former centre in Merlin Park which was destroyed by arson in 2013).
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