Strabane Glenelly Sinn Féin councillor Michelle Mc Mackin has accused management of the Social Security Agency (SSA) of adopting a flippant approach to major concerns about plans to downgrade the Urney Road Jobs and Benefits Office in the town to a front only service, given its decision to only dispatch two junior officials to meet with Strabane District Council today, while the body had formally requested to meet with SSA Chief Executive Tommy O Reilly to discuss the issues involved.
Cllr Mc Mackin, speaking before the scheduled 2pm meeting today and on behalf of the seven Sinn Fein councillors who will be attending, said,
“Strabane District Council had formally requested to meet with SSA Chief Executive Tommy O Reilly to discuss our wide-ranging concerns, in terms of the clearly negative impact on staff and customers alike, of the Agency’s plans to downgrade the Strabane JBO Office to a front office only service from the Autumn.
“Far from addressing these concerns, SSA senior management has adopted a flippant approach on this matter by dispatching to junior officials to meet with us here today. We will be making it known to these officials that this approach is totally unacceptable and will be demanding a meeting with senior management.
“We have also a wide-range series of questions and concerns that we are going to put to these officials today about the planned downgrade of the Strabane JBO Office and in terms of actions we will be pushing for from senior management will be the suspension of the roll out of their plans until a full ‘Equality Impact Assessment’ is carried out as it is clear that they would have differential impacts on Section 75 groupings both in terms of customers or staff alike.
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