Politics, not justice, is Labour’s compass

POOR Aodhan Ó Riordain. Last week, the Labour party TD personified the dilemma haunting his party.

That’s the benign interpretation of what befell Ó Riordain when he strayed into a hostile gathering. A less charitable explanation would be that he was engaging in what backbenchers in Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fáil excelled at — masquerading as the opposition.

On Tuesday, Ó Riordain turned up at a press conference organised by groups representing lone parents. They were outlining their concerns at major changes to the new social-welfare bill.

According to one provision, restrictions are to be placed on welfare entitlements to lone parents once their youngest child reaches seven. The measure is designed to incentivise the parents to work, although where they would get the work in the current climate is another matter.

It’s the type of move that is straight out of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Nothing is really achieved by its inception, but it sends out a hostile message to those receiving welfare, and reaches out to those who are hostile towards social-welfare recipients.

Among the opponents of the measure, apparently, is the minister who introduced it, Joan Burton. She has said that she will not implement the provision unless there is a bankable guarantee that there will be widespread provision of affordable childcare in December’s budget. She kept a straight face when she laid out her provisional opposition to her own bill.

Ó Riordain also kept a straight face at the press conference on Tuesday.

According to a report of the gathering, he came in for sustained criticism. All of the other parliamentarians, present to show their support, were voting against the bill. Ó Riordain was there to show his support, but he was voting for the bill. He wanted to have his cake and vote for it.

Grace Costigan, a single mother, reportedly asked Ó Riordain to wrestle with his conscious.

“You know it’s the right thing to do Aodhan. If you do, we will stand behind you. The safest thing to do for lone parents is to … vote no to this bill.”

Poor Ó Riordain didn’t like all the attention he was getting. “For some reason, I have become the focus of this meeting, and not the children and lone parents who are the reason I am here, and I don’t think that’s fair,” he said.

“I’ve made you the focus,” Ms Costigan said, “because you’re the only one in this room who is going to vote yes (to the bill).”

Ó Riordain might think twice the next time he is minded to speak out of both sides of his mouth.

To be fair to him, he, like many of his party colleagues, is obviously uncomfortable implementing measures that are hitting those least equipped to take a hit. But that is precisely what the Government, of which Labour is a constituent part, is doing.

The examples are numerous. Last week also saw a protest by the parents of children with disabilities. The Dáil was told that nearly half of children with autism and serious special needs had lost their domiciliary care allowance.

One letter read into the Dáil record demonstrated the approach permeating elements of the social-welfare service. A mother was told of her autistic child: “The needs of your child are not greater than the needs of any average six-year-old.”

A report earlier this year outlined the HSE’s plans for cutbacks, including a fall of 500,000 home-help hours; a reduction of 3.7% in funding for disability services, and “unavoidable” reduction in day, residential and respite care.

There have been numerous instances of parents and carers having their respite benefits cut back or cut off. Respite for those who look after children or adults with disabilities is often the difference between maintaining sanity and losing it. Yet the Government has decreed that these allowances must go.

Time and again, it is those least equipped to take the hit who are being targeted. This was the case in the last budget, when one measure was designed to slash disability benefits to recipients under 25. The move was to bring the level of benefit into line with that of a job-seeker of the same age, conveniently ignoring that an able-bodied job seeker is in a position to work. Once that measure was rumbled and analysed, the Government made a hasty u-turn.

Apart from savage cuts, Labour’s people have not been behind the door in contributing to hyping up issues like welfare fraud. Burton has stood over claims that savings of up to €600m can be made by eliminating fraud. Yet the latest figures from the comptroller and auditor general put fraud at €25m, or 1% of the overall budget. Hyping up the instance of fraud feeds into a nasty notion that all those receiving benefits are somehow sponging, or living it up, rather than surviving because they can’t get work.

All of this stuff is contrary to what the Labour party claims to represent.

Labour likes to think that it places a higher emphasis on social justice than, say, its coalition partner.

The reality, however, begs to differ. Cuts are necessary, but targeting them at the most vulnerable is a choice. Instead of having some idea of social justice as its compass through times of austerity, Labour has chosen, instead, to be guided by politics.

Most of the cuts have been made necessary by the Government’s ‘holy trinity’ policy — no hike in income tax, no change to Croke Park and no cuts to the basic social-welfare rate.

These grails are being pursued for political reasons. Fine Gael, in particular, is still somewhat in thrall to the idea that tax hikes alienate their constituency.

Equally, the public-service voters will not brook any interference with Croke Park. Any change to the basic social-welfare rate will directly affect the 450,000 unemployed, although there is some merit in putting this constituency to the bottom of the list for cuts.

Overall, though, the ‘holy trinity’ policy is being pursued for political ends. Similarly, issues like universal access to child benefit are left alone, irrespective of how unfair they are at a time like this. It’s all about keeping as many voters as possible onside.

Pain, as it is characterised, must then be applied at the points of least pressure. The parents of kids with disabilities don’t represent a vocal or powerful lobby. Neither do lone parents, or those involved in DEIS schools, or rural schools. This, then, is where the cuts are applied.

Equally, younger people are expected to take a greater whack of the burden, while pensioners have largely avoided any cutbacks. Is it right that those enjoying public-service pensions at the middle and upper scale continue to avoid that which is foisted disproportionately on other sections? The real difference is that elderly people vote in their droves, young adults hardly at all.

And so politics, rather than social justice, is the compass in targeting cuts. No amount of posturing by Labour bodies changes that reality.