MABS dealing with increase in emergency cases

The Mullingar branch of MABS (Money Advice and Budgeting Service) is experiencing a 22 per cent increase in calls compared to this time last year Minister for Social Affairs Mary Hanafin learned on her visit to the office last Thursday (November 15).Ms Hanafin praised the staff when she heard that they had managed to keep the waiting time for the service down to just three weeks as opposed to the national average of almost two months.'But we have only managed that because we are not doing outreach work as we should be doing,' said MABS chairman Ciaran McGrath.'We are instead concentrating on emergency cases only and those usually involve clients who are about to have either their gas or electricity supply cut off.'The three week waiting won"t last,' he added. 'Things are getting worse by the week and we haven"t seen the very worst of it as yet. We currently have 162 people on the books who need immediate help.'Speaking ahead of the Minister"s arrival MABS co-ordinator Bernie Hynes said that the organisation was not only experiencing an increase in the number of people looking for appointments but that the social and economic backgrounds of people looking for help had also shifted in the past year.'Traditionally we would provide help and advice for people who are either on social welfare or very low incomes but that has changed dramatically and we are now dealing with personal debt and mortgage arrears for people who we would never have seen come through our doors before,' she said.'Our appointment book is increasing every week and we are seeing people who are waged or who were waged until very recently running into financial difficulties.'Mullingar has not been hit with one big bang as other towns across the country have, it is more like a slow steady loss of jobs. At the minute the figure is 15 jobs a week as distinct to 712 which is the national average for towns across Ireland.'Currently about 44 per cent of the cases that we deal with are people who are not on social welfare.What I would say to people is that they should come and see us preferably before they get into any sort of arrears. Creditors will negotiate with you and the sooner you start to tackle the problem the better. If they see that you are willing to tackle the problem and that you are not arrears they will look at your case in a better light.'At the meeting with Minister Hanafin, Ciaran McGrath also took the opportunity to voice his concerns over the future of funding for MABS and appealed to the Minister that the €11 million open to applications from a range of voluntary organisations should not interfere with the money advice service.The pool of money is open to applications from people involved in marriage counselling, marriage preparation courses and child counselling services and the deadline for proposals is November 28.But the Minister told the chairman that she could not see how the funding would affect MABS.'You think that I am going to syphon off all of your money is that it?' joked Ms Hanafin. 'No I really can"t see how funding for other voluntary organisations will affect you,' she said.During her stay in Mullingar Ms Hanafin also visited the Citizens Information Service in Market House and the DisabilityActivation Project on Bishopsgate Street.