Barnardos in Ireland has closed all of its offices and services throughout the Republic for a week to save on salary costs.

The charity made the decision to shut down for this week, beginning Monday 13 August, as long ago as the end of last year.  It said it took the drastic move as a response to greater financial pressure caused by public spending cuts and a decline in voluntary donations.

Spokeswoman Irene Lawlor told civilsociety.co.uk this morning that a skeleton staff of eight are working this week; in the press office, on the emergency phone line and in the fundraising team, but all those will take next week off instead.

The charity employs 400 staff across the country and will save around 2 per cent of its annual salary bill because of the closure.  Lawlor said the overall saving will be in the region of €400,000 – enough to keep one centre, serving 30 children, open for a year.

The closure was deliberately timed to have the least impact, as August is normally the quietest time for Barnardos’ services in the country. All families that use its services were warned about the closure months ago.

Lawlor said the closure was just the latest in a series of cuts the organisation has made recently in order to mitigate falling income.  In 2009 it implemented a pay freeze; in 2010 it instigated pay cuts, and last year it made some redundancies.

She added that all staff had voluntarily accepted the reduction in pay that accompanied the closure, because they understood the precarious financial situation facing the charity.  Last year, income was €24m while expenditure topped €25.5m. This came on top of a €300,000 deficit the previous year.

Its seven shops will remain open for trading throughout the week, however.

Barnardos in Ireland is a totally separate charity from Barnardo’s in the UK.