Community projects under threat, religious group claims
The Conference of Religious in Ireland is calling on the incoming Government to change its approach to labour market programmes aimed at helping those out of work.
The group claims vital projects could be scrapped if Government plans to reduce community employment places go ahead.
Father Sean Healy of CORI says the move would create major problems.
He said: "The Government believes that the numbers on the community employment programme should be reduced.
"There are two problems with that; one is that there is an agreement between the social partners and Government that those numbers should not be reduced below 28,000 before 2003.
"If those numbers go down, there will be very substantial problems in local areas, and services will not be delivered that would have been delivered previously by community employment programmes," he added.
