Plan to ‘expose’ TDs by poverty group

POLITICIANS who fail to back a campaign to protect those on lower incomes and the dole will be named and shamed.

Public representatives are being targeted by charities and trade unions in a bid to protect the newly unemployed and the more vulnerable in society.

The Poor Can’t Pay coalition yesterday launched the second wave of its campaign to push representatives to defend those on low incomes from further cuts.

Despite a pledge in the Croke Park agreement that public servants would escape further wage cuts next year, the Government had failed so far to give the same assurance to thousands of vulnerable families facing hardship, said campaigners.

“Because of these enormous losses, people on the lowest incomes cannot take any more burden.

“They have already been asked to carry more than their fair share and their incomes should not be cut further,” said coalition spokesperson Dr Mary Murphy.

To date, just 11 TDs have signed up to the campaign, with three signatures from Fianna Fáil, three from Fine Gael, four from Labour and one from Sinn Féin. No Green Party or independent TDs have yet signed up.

The coalition lobbied TDs before the last budget, sending them 12,000 emails.

Organisations with the coalition include Age Action, Barnardos, Focus Ireland, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, SIPTU and Saint Vincent de Paul.

Since the budget, families have been struggling to meet basics needs, said members.

Cuts had left unemployed couples with two children on a weekly income of €477 per week, some 8% or €44 a week below the poverty line.

TDs, senators and councillors who fail to sign up on www.thepoorcantpay.ie. in the coming days or weeks would be ‘exposed’, said Dr Murphy. “They will be named and shamed as we start the build-up to the budget.”