PHOTOS: Celebrating 30 years of Community Employment in Dundalk

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All photos: Arthur Kinahan

Last week at the Redeemer Family Resource Centre in Dundalk, 30 years of the Community Employment (CE) Scheme in the town was celebrated at an event organised by the Department of Social Protection. The event saw the schemes in the Dundalk and surrounding areas presented with plaques to mark the occasion.

John Maloney, Chairperson of the Redeemer Development Management Group, which focuses on Cox's Demesne in Dundalk, spoke to the Dundalk Democrat about the impact the CE scheme has had on local community, including both those employed by the scheme, and the community groups they work with.

“30 years ago, Ireland was a different place”, John explained. “We had come from full employment, even in the Cox's Demesne area where people were working in local factories, they were very high paid jobs and people were proud of it. We had young families, women were working in the evening time in Ecco, and they were also doing piecework to do with the shoe factories.

“And then in a very short space of time all of that went away and you ended up with very high unemployment because you had the recession of the 80s. It was very hard to find somebody with a job. The unemployment figures in the 80s at that stage in Dundalk were very high as our traditional industries were shutting. But they were higher even in some communities than they were in others. Also, we were a border town, that also had an impact on it as well.”

“The employment schemes then were providing people with jobs. You had whole families where nobody was working, so all of a sudden people would be getting out of the house, they were getting training. They were getting a small litte bit of money extra, nothing major, it wouldn't change your life or anything. But the fact that they were getting out of the house and it gave them a sort of a good feeling about themselves, and also a benefit to the community.

“It was a great benefit too to the families, because the children, obviously the parents were happier, but also as well as that, the children saw their parents going out to work. They saw their parents learning, doing courses and stuff like that, so that had a knock on effect as well to individual families.”

The impact the CE Scheme has had on local communities has been huge, John added. “They're embedded in a lot of organisations that are there in the community that are providing community services, and people don't realise that they're actually there.

“If you look at say sporting clubs, you look at community groups, you look at all of these, there's usually somebody from Community Employment working there. None of these organisations would be able to afford to employ people themselves. It's playing a vital part, I think, in any of these organisations. They're the hearbeat of a lot of these groups really.”

Below: Cooley group of Bridie Magee, Margaret Harold, Ambrose Kane and Breda Fernon receiving a plaque from Noeleen Mallon of the DSP Scheme.