Rise in emergency welfare claimants

FIGURES show that the number of people claiming emergency welfare payments is continuing to rise, with almost 90,000 people claiming rent supplement alone.

However, the as-yet-unpublished statistics also show that the rate of claims has slowed somewhat after it spiked dramatically over the course of the past year.

Figures at the end of May show that more people are struggling to meet rent and mortgage payments and have applied for supplementary welfare allowances to tide them over.

The payments, administered by community welfare officers (CWOs), have been accessed in growing numbers since the middle of last year when the recession began to bite.

The latest figures show that 89,897 people are claiming rent supplements provided by CWOs – an increase of about 5,000 people since the end of March, and almost 15,000 more people than the number who were accessing the supplements at the end of last December.

The latest figures also show that for basic payments, or weekly living money, the number of claimants stood at 44,366 at the end of last month. The comparable figure for last December was 35,728, although the rate of increase has slowed in the past two months.

Similarly, the number of people claiming short-term support payments to help meet mortgage interest repayments continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate.

The figure for the end of May stood at 12,766, up from 11,051 at the end of March and just over 8,000 claimants at the end of last December.

However, only as recently as 2007, just 4,000 people were accessing the payments – which offers an indication of the problems many families are now facing when it comes to meeting their monthly mortgage payments.

Community welfare officers have warned that the figures are unlikely to begin falling in the near future, as thousands more people are forced to rely on emergency social welfare payments.

CWOs have also complained that the lengthening queues of people hoping to access the payments has stretched their capability to deal with growing client numbers to the limit.

However, in recent months the Government has moved to provide additional resources in this area.