| From Unity, 14 March 2009 |
No planned invasion of the South by the Northby Pearse McKennaHaving imposed a pension levy and pay cut on public-sector workers, the Fianna Fáil Government are now turning on social-welfare claimants.The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin’s department has raised the issue of cross-border fraud at a recent meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council. A crackdown on cross-border fraud has been initiated to combat what Hanafin calls “welfare tourism.” Because of the higher rates of social welfare in the South, and the decline in the value of sterling, claimants in the South are much better off. Job-seekers’ allowance in Northern Ireland amounts to €59.90 per week, compared with €204 in the Republic. A married couple in the North would get €106.70, while the equivalent allowance in the South is €339.90. Implying that there are hordes of unemployed waiting to cross the border to abuse the benefit system is similar to the rhetoric used by the British Government that led to a reduction in social-security payments. British media coverage of thousands of economic refugees at the Channel Tunnel and every ferry port in Europe, waiting to come to Britain to “take advantage of Social Services,” was used as a justification for imposing cuts in welfare payments. The British Social Security Act (1989) introduced even more rigid tests of availability for employment, with the threat of the removal of benefits. The overall impact of this Social Security reform has reduced the resources of a substantial proportion of claimants. The Southern Government is examining radical options to cut spending on social welfare by tightening eligibility rules for state benefits. The measures include: • means-testing payments for dependants of recipients of job-seekers’ benefit, carers’ benefit and state contributory pension; • abolishing the entitlement to two social-welfare payments at the same time, affecting lone parents and widows’ and widowers’ payments; • abolishing or reducing additional allowances, such as the living-alone allowance, paid to older people on social welfare; • axing the universal entitlement of over-seventies to household benefits, such as free television licence, telephone and electricity allowances; • reducing fuel and household benefits; such as electricity and gas. The details of this briefing were released under the Freedom of Information Act. They were initially refused by decision-makers. No doubt this was to keep people’s attention focused on the cross-border invasion of Northern unemployed. There is no planned invasion, only planned cuts in benefits. |
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