VOLUNTEERS who have given years of service to the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) will leave the organisation if it is taken over by regional boards.
Limerick Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea has warned that plans by the Citizens Information Board (CIB) to replace the 51 MABS groups across the country with a smaller number of regional companies will result in the loss of a big number of volunteers who have valuable years of experience with the service.
He told an Oireachtas Committee last week that all the staff he had spoken to “without exception” were opposed to the plan.
“They are horrified by this proposal. MABS is based on a local, volunteer-based ethos and if that is removed, the service will be be threatened,” he said.
He added that the exit of staff and the reorganisation proposals could actually end up costing the State more.
“Volunteers have no interest – none, in volunteering to help out at MABS if it is regionalised. It means the whole thing is in danger of collapse,” he said.
CIB chairwoman Ita Mangan told the committee it did not have the resources to properly monitor all 51 MABS companies. When the board took over MABS in 2009, it had 92 staff. Now it has 74.
She said that MABS customers, including those in mortgage and other financial difficulties, would continue to enjoy the same level of service.
“My hope and my expectation is that there will be massive improvements and we will have more MABS services,” she added.
