Increases ‘no use to those on verge of poverty’

BUDGET increases for those on social welfare were not enough to help those on the verge of poverty, Labour’s Willie Penrose said last night.

People on the lowest welfare payments would only be 1.40 better off a day, he said. Children had been virtually forgotten and there was no mention at all about childcare.

If the Government was to honour its own three-year commitment to increase children’s allowance, this would have to rise by 26 a month. Instead what was being given was a meagre 6 a month.

Fine Gael’s Michael Ring said the ‘Scrooge’ Budget would do nothing to help the poorest in our society. “Shame on you,” he told Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy.

The national housing agency, Threshold, said the Government had failed to prioritise infrastructural spending for those least well off and most at risk from poverty.

The Children’s Rights Alliance said the Government had broken its promise on the medical card for the third year in a row.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) was shocked that the Budget had ignored child poverty, education and health issues.

While the 10 increase in the minimum social welfare payment was welcome, the good news stopped there, said SVP vice president John Monaghan. “The minimum increase needed in tax credits to take everyone on the new national minimum wage out of the tax net was 1,319 per annum. The Government stopped a miserly 279 short at 1,040,” he said.

The Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed said while the Government emphasised the need to maintain competitiveness and job growth it did little to eliminate the unemployment traps that put off people taking up low-paid jobs.

Defending her position, Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, said she had produced a social welfare package of 650m that would protect and improve weekly social welfare rates.

She also wanted to speak to interested parties before signing the regulations for a number of supplementary schemes so that they would reflect their concerns.

“I can guarantee you that no one on rent supplement would be made homeless because of the changes that I am introducing,” she declared.