‘Even the dead are not safe from Government’

The Coalition was accused of hitting the elderly as well as the young with cuts in an austerity budget that failed the basic test of fairness.

Ahead of expected protests today over its third budget, the Government faces accusations of leaving struggling households in despair and forcing thousands of young people onto the emigration path.

Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath argued that not even the dead were safe from cuts as part of the €1.6bn in Fine Gael and Labour saving measures.

Medical card eligibility, dole payments for the young, the bereavement grant, and maternity benefit payments will all be reduced next year.

Mr McGrath said most people going to bed at night did not worry about government debt or the yield on bonds. Rather, it was the ordinary issues which mattered after a budget.

“They worry about putting food on the table, paying their mortgages and paying their electricity bills, and at this time of year they begin to worry about providing for Christmas,” he said.

The party also claimed that a €200m fund for projects around the country including for roads, sport, and 1916 ceremonies was nothing more than a Fine Gael-Labour “slush fund” for the local elections.

Fianna Fáil also claimed that changes to eligibility for medical card holders would see 35,000 people lose their entitlements.

Cuts to the phone allowance for the elderly could see alarms linked to landlines in homes not working, opposition TDs warned.

The cut will save €44m a year in the Department of Social Protection.

Abolishing the mortgage interest supplement payments for struggling homeowners would only cause more hardship for them, said Fianna Fáil.

Mr McGrath criticised the abolishment of the bereavement grant of €850 for families, saying: “Even the dead are not safe from the Government.”

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald argued that the reductions on basic social protections had “been calculated and cruel”.

She added: “Getting rid of the bereavement grant, withdrawing the telephone allowance for the elderly and carers, and cuts to social protection supports by up to a third for young people out of work are shocking.”

Party finance spokesman Pearse Doherty claimed the Coalition was “fumbling in the greasy till” and warned that, given the cuts to medical cards, that the health minister should be sacked if he could not do his job.

He asked how jobseekers were to be left on €100 a week while bankers partially paid by the State were getting thousands of euro a week.