Burton will work to ensure budget cuts do not fall on less well-off

SOCIAL Protection Minister Joan Burton says she will do her best to ensure that the burden of resolving the financial crisis does not fall disproportionately on those in the lowest part of the economic spectrum.

But the minister, who met with more than 30 voluntary and community groups in Dublin yesterday, has stressed that, at this stage, no decisions have been made in relation to social welfare measures for the December budget.

Ms Burton said her department had been marked out by the previous government and the IMF for reductions in expenditure of about €822 million.

“We have inherited this deal and have to work our way out of it,” she said.

She emphasised that one of her key priorities would be to ensure that the department’s reduced resources were targeted at the people who needed them the most.

“The people represented by the groups did not cause the banks to collapse. They’re not the people who made property developers do crazy things and I am very conscious of that.”

The minister said she had been working with groups dealing with people in debt because banks had no uniform way of dealing with people.

“We spend €70m a year in mortgage interest supplement. We pay half a billion roughly on rent supplement to 95,000 or so landlords. They are big sums of money that are mostly going into our banks.”

Social justice and policy officer with the Society of St Vincent de Paul, Audrey Deane, said their regional offices had experienced a huge increase in calls in the first half of this year.

She said: “We know savings have to be made but we are adamant that we don’t have to start with making it harder for the most vulnerable people to survive. That would not be a sign of a civilised society.”

Age Action said the cuts to the household benefits package must be reversed to avoid more suffering and increased fatalities among older people this winter.