David Norris: Ban welfare recipients from buying alcohol

Social welfare recipients should be banned from buying alcohol as it wastes taxpayers’ money, Independent senator David Norris has declared.

Mr Norris shocked listeners and fellow politicians yesterday as he hit out at those on the dole using their payments to buy alcohol.

In an interview on Newstalk radio, the former presidential candidate said: “I hear people on the wireless saying: ‘Oh, what about the poor people on social welfare and them being deprived of the few drinks?’ I don’t spend my tax dollars to buy drinks for people on social welfare. I really don’t and I resent that. I think that it’s ridiculous that tax dollars are being used to fund drinking.”

Asked if he was proposing that people on welfare should not be allowed buy a drink, Mr Norris replied: “Not with tax money, no. I don’t think tax is for people to be drinking all the time, and I see them all around my area buying slabs of drinks for virtually nothing.”

Mr Norris’ comments come after Health Minister Leo Varadkar earlier this week announced proposed new minimum pricing rules for alcohol in a bid to reduce binge drinking in Ireland.

Mr Norris, who lives in Dublin city centre, says he regularly sees people “vomiting and puking all over the place” and that the country has “gone mad on drink”.

“Drink is now a human right, it’s ridiculous,” he told Newstalk.

Social Democrat councillor Gary Gannon, who lives in the inner city where Mr Norris lives, said that the senator’s comments were “socially and economically abhorrent”.

“Senator Norris is essentially suggesting an economic sanction against a section of society who finds itself in a less fortunate position than the senator himself,” said Mr Gannon “Senator Norris’s comments feed into a wider fictional narrative around the working class in Ireland as those who take money from the State without giving back.

“We have a duty to fight against this narrative in the strongest terms, and focus instead on measures such as a living wage, decent work and secure working contracts to ensure fewer people are at risk of poverty.”

The senator’s comments come after Fine Gael TD Catherine Byrne earlier this year criticised people who spend their money on drink and cigarettes but would not pay their water charges.

“I see people stacking up their trolleys with drink and wine and I can guarantee you that some of them shouldn’t be stacking up their trolleys with drink and wine,” she told the Dáil.