For the first time ever, the Society of St Vincent de Paul’s quarterly magazine has gone on sale nationwide in Eason’s and other outlets. The charity felt there was the need for a national voice on issues of social justice in Ireland and to highlight the human impact of the austerity imposed by Government Budgetary decisions on families and individuals.
Writing in the magazine, The SVP Bulletin, the Society’s spokesman, National Vice-President John Monaghan, said that politicians have used confusing language to distract attention from the impact of the cuts and changes they have made.
“Politicians have redefined simple words and concepts, such as fairness, reform and luxury. We may assume that when we hear of reform, that the outcome will result in some form of improvement, but apparently not. Cuts or even the imposition of extra costs are described as rebalancing,” Mr Monaghan said.
“The Minister for Finance described his budgetary efforts as focused on ‘growth’ of jobs, but somebody should have told Minister Howlin, because his ‘cuts,’ called ‘rebalancing,’ killed off the use of Community Employment Schemes.”
Mr Monaghan cited this as an example of how job opportunities were removed from the most vulnerable, and gives other examples of the impact of austerity on those seeking help from the Society.
The number of calls for assistance to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVP) throughout the country is continuing to increase, with strong pressure on the Society’s voluntary members to respond and on the Society’s financial resources.
The SVP Bulletin has, up to now, been published as an internal magazine.
SVP has also recently thanked everyone who supported the 2011 Society of St. Vincent de Paul Urgent Appeal.
This support enabled SVP to visit 150,000 homes over Christmas.
The enormous generosity both online and at church gate collections was just incredible, stated the charity, over 1,000 collections took place all around the country at churches, shopping centres, schools, companies and clubs.
SVP received gifts and donations from as far afield as Qatar, Canada, South Africa and almost every country in between.
An estimated 56,000 toys were collected with the 2FM Toy Appeal and SuperValu, who made it possible for the whole country could take part.