‘This cut will push us over the edge’

THE impact of budget changes to the family income supplement (FIS) have been highlighted by an anonymous letter writer who has contacted each Dáil TD registering her dismay at the measure.

The woman, whose identity is known to the Irish Examiner, writes how as a mother of four, she is in “extreme distress” at the proposed changes to the means testing of the payment.

The cuts, included in the Social Welfare Bill, will mean the carer’s allowance will be counted as means when calculating the rate of FIS, which is a top-up payment made to lower income families.

In her letter, she writes that her second-youngest child has autism while her youngest child is being assessed for the condition. She notes her husband is the sole earner in the household. She estimates that with the loss of the FIS, due to the fact that she receives carer’s allowance for looking after her autistic son, the family will be down €139 a week.

“In effect our weekly income is down 15%,” she writes.

“It means instead of just managing as we were, we now will be struggling even more. Not for luxuries mind, I mean basic food on the table and bills etc ESB, heat. This cut wasn’t even announced, it was sneaked in the back door and it is pretty major for most families.”

The FIS changes have sparked concerns that some families will be pushed into outright poverty.

According to the letter writer: “Having a child with a disability is hard enough. We cant even get proper access to services for [her child] and this cut will push us and many more over the edge.

She describes a 15% cut in household income as “a nightmare come true”.

She says: “I am so sick of fighting services and with the thought of it having to face it a second time for our youngest and now this cut, well it takes away my will to live.

“I am broken and if my children didn’t have a disability, especially autism where my son can’t deal with change, I would pack up the whole family and leave this country.”

She said the measure “has been an attack, and the vulnerable and the weak can’t shout” adding she is “sick of having to fight for every little thing”.

She adds: “You gain one victory and yet something else comes along to pull the rug form under your feet in case you were getting any ideas that things would be OK.”