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.