New one-stop-shop for social welfare in Galway

A new one-stop shop for jobseekers and Social Welfare recipients has opened in the Webworks building at the Fairgreen.

The three-storey complex is known as the Intreo Centre beside the bus coach station on the corner of College and Fairgreen Roads and is now home to the Social Welfare office, the Community Welfare office, Employment Services – formerly FÁS – and the personal public service number registration centre.

Social Welfare has moved from the Hynes’ Building on St Augustine Street; the Community Welfare office transferred from opposite the Radisson Blu HoteL; Employment Services was in Island House near the Cathedral; and Victoria Place was where the personal public service number registration centre had been located.

Service users were sent letters notifying them of the change of offices. However none of the Government’s websites carried details of the new location of the Intreo Centre. All calls have now been directed to the same number (091) 500800, which rang out constantly when tried by the Galway City Tribune.

The Galway Citizen’s Information Centre said the one-stop shop should make it easier for people to access all services under one roof, instead of traipsing across town to all the different offices.

It should also spell the end of long queues which snaked along St Augustine Street at the height of the recession on ‘dole’ day.

The centre is open Monday to Wednesday 9.15-5pm; Thursday 10.30-5pm and Friday 9.15-4.30pm.

The ‘Intreo’ type facility, which is being rolled out across the country, is designed to provide a more streamlined approach for jobseekers and employers with public access as well as backroom office support.

The OPW entered a lease for the building last year and planning was approved, subject to extra toilets being built.

In 2013 it was revealed that the Department of Social Protection was spending over half a million euro leasing three of the buildings.

It was spending €457,000 to lease two premises at St Augustine Street, €105,000 for Island House and €32,000 annually for the Victoria Place Building. The building was bought by Irish millionaire Jason Williams through his Connaught and Whitehall Capital UK Ltd investment company for a reputed €4.5 million.

The project originally cost developer Bernard McNamara €35 million – he had purchased the site from Galway City Council for €6.1m.