Saturday, March 05, 2011

Isolated elderly Irish in Britain need support

The Irish Chaplaincy in Britain has said it is expecting to see the demand for its services “grow during these difficult times for Ireland’s economy” and has said it will make every effort to “continue to help the most vulnerable Irish emigrants who turn to us for support.”

Dr Philomena Cullen, Director of the ICB, told ciNews that many elderly Irish emigrants living in Britain are “facing isolation and severe poverty.”

She explained that many of them came to England in the 1950s and are now elderly and vulnerable.  

The ICB currently runs an outreach to 176 of these isolated older Irish people though its Older Person’s Project.  

While the ICB has “yet to really experience the emigration surge that is expected in terms of new 2011 emigrants”, last year was the chaplaincy’s busiest year ever.

“The increased demand on our services has come from the existing base of Irish people who are already here,” Dr Cullen said.  “With our tightly focused projects working with Irish Travellers, Irish prisoners and older Irish people, what we have found is that as we have grown and improved capacity in our service, we are finding that there is no end of unmet existing need among our three traditional client groups,” she said.

“All our clients are vulnerable and marginalised and many emigrated from difficult backgrounds to try and make a fresh start in the UK.  This means they are particularly susceptible to any downturn in the economy because they are starting from the bottom rungs of the ladder in the first place,” Dr Cullen explained.

According to official statistics, Irish people became the second largest group of foreign nationals in the British prison system in September 2010 (official figure of 683), just after Jamaicans and ahead of Nigerians.

According to Dr Cullen, “Counting foreign nationals in a host population is notoriously difficult and we know that official figures are only at best rough estimates.  Last year, while our prisoner project, ICPO, worked with 588 Irish people in prison here both through direct and indirect contact, helpline, letters, via families, and third parties, our outreach service was able to have face-to-face contact in only 48 prisons out of the 142 prisons across England and Wales, and so we know that we are still only managing to work with approximately half of all Irish people who end up in our prisons.”

“The same scenario of demand outstripping our capacity to provide applies in our existing work with Travellers and older Irish people too.  So while we know we make a positive difference for approximately 1,000 vulnerable Irish people each year, we are acutely conscious that this is still only scratching the service of existing need”, she said.

Currently the Irish Government funds 54 per cent of the chaplaincy’s budget, but the ICB is concerned that the recession may force it to cut back on its current level of funding.  

“Previously, supportive funders like the Ireland Fund of Great Britain, who would have given us a grant of £25,000 to help run our outreach service to vulnerable older Irish people, last year only gave us £2,000.  This was they told us, no reflection on the quality of our bid or work, but because their own budget had been reduced”, Dr Cullen explained.

“Given that we expect to see demands on our services grow during these difficult times for Ireland’s economy, we are appealing to those within the broader Irish community to join us in this mission.  We are looking for supporters to join our CAIRDE scheme where just £2 a month will help make sure that we continue to provide our much needed services," Dr Cullen said.

Referring to her own family history, Dr Cullen told ciNews, “As a second generation Irish person, I know that the opportunities I've enjoyed have been a result of my parent's earlier struggles.  We owe a huge debt of gratitude to that previous generation.  So we are appealing to all those in the Irish community who have prospered, to remember those Irish emigrants, for whom the migrants dream has not been realised.”

She added, “The generation of those who came in the 1950s were forced economic migrants, who not only made huge contributions to the host country, but who, through remittances, kept the fledging Irish Republic going in testing times.  It is impossible to over-emphasise the debt that is owed to them.”

One ICB client, ‘Patrick’ who is assisted by the Irish Older Persons Project explained the impact of the outreach on his life.  

“I was in a really bad way when the chaplaincy knocked on my door.  I hadn’t left the flat in months and when they got the doctor round he told me I had scabies.  I was depressed and the social weren’t doing anything to help because I was a 'drinker'.”

Though he “didn’t really trust them when they first came” because he “didn’t think anyone could help me,” the people from the ICB “just kept coming back.”

“With their support, I got a new home and stayed off the drink, they even took me home to Ireland; I hadn’t been back there, or seen my family since my father died in 1989.  I never knew there was such kindness in the world,” he said.

“At the ICB we believe that ‘people live in one another's shelter’,” Dr Cullen said and she urged the Irish community to sign up online to support the ICB’s CAIRDE/FRIENDS scheme at www.irishchaplaincy.org.uk