Social Welfare Bill ‘the meanest in decades’
The bill, published by Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, will give legal effect to social welfare measures contained in the budget.
The bill will be voted on in the Dáil the week after next.
A bill is published annually to make amendments to social welfare provisions. This year it does not deal with medical card issues because changes to the medical card scheme announced in the budget will require separate legislation which will be published shortly.
The jobseeker’s payment will be paid for a maximum of 12 months under the bill, a change from the present 15-month period an unemployed person can claim the benefit.
The Children’s Allowance will cease when a child reaches 18 from 2010.
Both Fine Gael and the Labour party said the bill was confirmation that the Government will not protect the most vulnerable in next year’s budget.
Fine Gael spokesperson on social and family affairs, Olwyn Enright, said it was “the final nail in the coffin for Fianna Fáil’s false claims that the vulnerable would be protected”.
She said: “We have already seen both the young and the old targeted with vicious education and medical card cutbacks and Mary Hanafin has continued the trend today.
“The bill hits the vulnerable with jobseekers losing almost €3,000 and children set to suffer cuts in child benefit and Early Childcare Supplement.”
Labour party spokesperson on social and family affairs, Roisín Shortall, said: “This bill is perhaps the meanest such bill that we have seen in many years, making it harder to qualify for Jobseekers Benefit payment, at a time when unemployment is soaring and when more families are coming to rely on these very payments.”
She said: “The bill contains actual cuts in some child benefit payments and in the early childcare supplement.
“It will also usher in new restrictions on Illness Benefit and on Health and Safety Benefit.”
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