Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Julien Behal/PA Archive/Press Association Images
Budget11

Budget 2011: Child benefit, social welfare cuts come before Dáil

Minister Ó Cuív defends leaving pension payments untouched while cutting child and disability support.

THE DÁIL WILL VOTE ON the social welfare cuts contained in the Budget later today.

Under the Bill, social welfare payments would be cut across the board by an average €8, with supplementary welfare allowance being cut by €10 a week.

Child benefit would be cut by €10 for the first and second child, €20 for the third child, and another €10 for each subsequent child, and the jobseeker’s allowance would be cut by €6 a week.

The Opposition is calling for the government to reject cuts to blind people, widows, carers and people with disabilities.

Rejecting criticism of cuts in child benefit and disability support payments, the Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív said compensating for those cuts would mean other welfare schemes would have to shoulder the extra cost.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Ó Cuív said that he had sought savings through targeting fraud but €533m had to come from rate cuts. He said that pensions were left untouched because “obviously people over that age have no capacity to earn income”.

When asked why he was reducing disability payments for blind people who make up a small proportion of the overall disability payments, the minister said: ”It wouldn’t be right to separate out just one disability when you might have someone with multipe disabilities who are more severely disabled, but might have their eyesight”.

However, when saying that the system needs to be reformed, Ó Cuív said: “We have to be able to differentiate in a nuanced way the individual needs of people”.

Indication of vote?

Fine Gael’s Michael Ring is calling on the backbench and Independent TDs who support the government to vote against the Bill.

Yesterday evening, TDs voted by a margin of 80 votes to 73 to introduce the Social Welfare Bill, one of the two major planks of the Budget. The vote was taken manually so no initial record of voters is available.

In an earlier electronic vote on the same motion, passed 80-72, independent TD Joe Behan voted with the government; a number of FF deputies abstained, as some FG members were attending a party meeting.