Following a steering group meeting on Tuesday, held to try and organise a campaign to oppose the closure of the Social Security Offices in Newcastle and Ballynahinch, a campaign group has now been formed and is taking this issue head on.
Ryan McKinney, NIPSA Deputy Secretary, said: “These offices provide vital services to benefit claimants, many of whom are vulnerable members of the public, to employers and to the community as a whole.
“They also provide local employment for staff and provide financial stimulus for the businesses in those towns, by staff and benefit claimants spending their money in these towns and this would be removed by closing these offices.
“In NIPSA’s opinion, and this is a widely held view, the impact of these closures has not been properly considered. To add to this there is:
* a lack of access to broadband (seen as an alternative way to access this information),
* a lack of transport to travel to other offices
* a failure by the Department to properly carry out an equality screening and rural proofing exercise compounding the issue.
“We are trying to generate as much public leverage on the issue as possible to alert the public to the significant issues if these offices were to close. We have had initial public meetings held on the 11th and the 13th of October in Newcastle and Ballynahinch.
“The meetings were well attended by political representatives from across the parties (DUP, SF, UUP, SDLP and Alliance) and had local councillors, MLA’s and the two MP’s in attendance and we also had a spread of community groups, the advice sector, staff and claimants in attendance. There is a solid consensus opposing these closures.
“Through this universal opposition to the proposals we have established a steering group to take forward coordination of the campaign. We have petitions, Facebook pages, meetings with political representativess, Newry Mourne and Down District Council also passing motions of opposition, questions being asked in the NI Assembly and advice on how to respond to the consultation.
“We hope by doing this we can change the mind of Paul Givan, the Minister for Communities, whose Department this consultation and proposal sits with, and hopefully get him to scrap the proposals and to keep these vital local services open in Newcastle and Ballynahinch.”
“It is ironic that Minister Paul Givan has totally united the community in its opposition to his proposals to close the Newcastle and Ballynahinch social security offices,” added Ryan McKinney.
