NICVA CE Seamus McAleavey said, “The scale of the cuts being faced and the resulting jobs losses is unprecedented in our sector’s relationship with government in Northern Ireland in the last 35 or more years.

“Skilled staff will be lost from our sector and the impact will be felt right across Northern Ireland with a loss of local walking routes, arts events and childcare facilities. Voluntary and community organisations provide highly specialized services in areas where government provision doesn’t meet the needs of local people and often work with harder to reach client groups.

“It is obvious that the most vulnerable people will be harder hit with programmes focusing on training and support to help people get jobs, develop crucial early learning skills in children and rehabilitation being cut.

“Decisions are being made unfairly across a number of departments and with no real consideration of the impact on services, or indeed discussion among Ministers. We believe the view of budget holders is that voluntary and community sector programmes are the easiest and quickest to cut regardless of their value.

“We further believe that some decisions are made recognising that they will ultimately rebound and cost government more in the long run as more expensive options in turn come into play.”

NICVA has requested an emergency meeting with the First and deputy First Ministers to address the issue. 

Information collected by NICVA via their Cutswatch site indicates the current job losses are as follows: 

Early Years Fund	177
Environment	130
European Social Fund (DEL)	137
Other	17
TOTAL	461