No hope in this, only horror and hunger for vulnerable families

By Fergus Finlay

Thursday, December 10, 2009

THE word "hope" was bandied about a lot in the days running up to the budget. It was going to be a turning point, we were told. The day we got our act together. The day we turned a corner to a brighter future.

Well, I can think of several words beginning with H that sum up the budget for me. And hope isn’t one of them. Horror was part of my reaction. And I’m afraid one of the consequences of this budget for many families, including children, will be hunger.

No doubt the analysts and the commentators, in their comfy chairs at their state-of-the-art computers, will tell us that cuts in basic rates of social welfare are sustainable and justifiable. After all, the cost of living has gone down, they tell us.

What they don’t tell us is that the lion’s share of the reduction in inflation has been accounted for by reduced interest rates and lower mortgage costs. Poor families don’t have mortgages, and they don’t own their own homes. What they try to do is to feed and clothe their kids, to buy school uniforms for them, to give them the best start in life they can. And they do it with very little. Believe it or not, in all the years of our prosperity, the gap between rich and poor in Ireland never narrowed. In fact it got wider – and today it got wider again. With the loss of the Christmas bonus earlier this year, poor families already take an effective 2% cut in the support they get. Today it was cut by the largest amount in the entire history of Ireland as a republic.

In terms of its social outlook, in terms of its contribution to the building of a community, in terms of any concept of fairness, today’s was a merciless and unforgivable budget. Of course, if you like a drop of whiskey or are in the market for a new car, it wasn’t too bad. But if you’re a lone parent trying to raise children, if you’re a person with a disability struggling to live as independent a life as possible, the message is different. You, I’m afraid, are going to have to cut a new notch on your belt. The minister may not have had the nerve to mention it in his speech but in another shameful cut both people with a disability and people who are blind have had €8 a week taken from them.

Those of us who think that child support is important – that it’s the mark of a civilised society – have argued for some time now that there’s a strong case for redesigning the whole system. Any redesign would have winners and losers, because it would target child support away from people who need it less, and towards people who need it more. But instead of even attempting to redesign it, the Government has simply taken an axe to child support, and the only result will be to ensure that more children are raised in consistent poverty next year – with inadequate nutrition, higher rates of illness, and less chance of completing even part of their education.

What an incredibly short-sighted approach that is. It’s easy enough for every single one of us who are taxpayers to calculate our own effective rate of tax – just look at your payslip and divide the total by your salary.

Mine is about 34%. If the Finance Minister asked each of us to increase that by 1%, it would not have been necessary to take money from people who have little or nothing. But instead of even thinking about it, they’re introducing prescription charges for people who can’t afford them. Fifty cent may not seem like a lot, but you can be absolutely sure it’s the thin edge of another cruel wedge.

Disadvantage and poverty have a cyclical and ongoing impact on families and children. It is clear the cuts announced in Budget 2010 in social welfare and health will continue to push families into intergenerational cycles of poverty and have far-reaching implications for children and Irish society. It is continually hard to fathom how we can continue to fail the most vulnerable citizens of our country with rhetoric about sustainability and future growth. When the money was available, little was done to reform the systems and services in place to make a lasting and real difference to children’s lives.

Inevitably, now that the money is gone, vulnerable children and families are the first we turn to when looking for sacrifices. We are forcing children in Ireland to sacrifice their childhood and their futures for our mistakes. It is unconscionable that having failed those children with the very least of everything – educational opportunity, material goods and adequate healthcare – we have now placed the burden of recession squarely at their feet.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, December 10, 2009