SVP had 1,500 referrals in Galway in run-up to Christmas

The Society of St Vincent de Paul received over 1,500 referrals in Galway City alone in the four weeks before Christmas.

According to the Regional Coordinator for the organisation, the run up to Christmas was much busier than before, with the numbers requiring help from the charity increasing year on year.

Madge McGreal told the Connacht Tribune that in 2018, there was a surge in people seeking help from the organisation for the first time.

“This year, there was an increase in people who have never used our service before – we’ve definitely had an increase.

“We deal with a lot of people who lose their job because of illness and hard times,” she said.

Poverty levels among children and lone parents remains extremely high, with increasing rents putting extreme pressure on these households, said Ms McGreal.

“We are dealing with a lot of people in rent arrears and our conference members would advocate on behalf of them, to try keep them in their homes.

“The lower and middle income workers are definitely suffering. Once their rent is paid, there is nothing left at the end of the month,” she said.

Investment in housing should be a priority, said Ms McGreal, adding that those who are renting are often in substandard accommodation with rising rents.

“They are paying high rents and there’s no insulation or anything like that so it costs more to heat these places,” she added.

Ms McGreal said the numbers of people working and struggling to make ends meet was on the up – and these are the people St Vincent de Paul want to hear from.

Nationally, the charity’s eight regional centres have been dealing with over 1,000 calls per day.

Rising numbers in emergency accommodation, particularly families, has increased demand on the organisation’s services – and in Galway, that stretches outside the city boundaries.

“There is an awful lot of people in the city in emergency accommodation but we have people in emergency accommodation in Clifden – we have people in that situation across the county.

“The people living in Direct Provision, they are really suffering because they have nothing. We have two Direct Provision centres in the city and our view is that education is the cornerstone to helping them,” said Ms McGreal.

“We do after-school clubs in the Eglinton [Direct Provision Centre in Salthill] and we help with swimming lessons for the kids, and for the adults by helping with courses,” she continued.

Ms McGreal said the perception that things are improving was wrong, with many peoples still suffering extreme financial hardship.

“The stats on poverty released in December show some moderate improvement with a three per cent decrease in levels, so they say things are getting better, but they’re not getting better for everybody,” she said.

The National Minimum Wage needs to become a living wage because it currently doesn’t match what would be considered a minimum living standard, said Ms McGreal.

Christmas is always a busy time of the year for the organisation and in the week past, the western branch of the charity’s 1,200 volunteers delivered thousands of food hampers and toys to those in to people in need across Galway, Mayo and Roscommon.