Social welfare increases and changes to back to work supports very welcome

8 Dec 2005

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed welcomes the €17 increase in the lowest rate of social welfare, announced in the Budget. The INOU also welcomes the overdue changes announced to the Back to Work Allowance and Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. These changes will assist a significant number of unemployed people both to start their own businesses and to take up employment opportunities.

However, given the enormous resources available to the Minister for Finance the INOU believes that more could have been done. In particular, the Minister could have done more to improve the rewards from work and remove remaining barriers that prevent people from taking up work. There is no increase to the Child Dependent Allowance payment and the income limit for the retention of secondary benefits remains unchanged since 1994. Similarly, while the increase in the lowest rate of social welfare is very useful, the Government has failed to meet its target of 70% of the qualified adult payment.

‘There are a number of announcements which are very welcome’ the INOU General Secretary Eric Conroy said. ‘In particular, the €17 increase in the lowest social welfare rate ensures that the National Anti-poverty strategy and Sustaining Progress income adequacy targets are in line to be met. In addition, the improvements in both the Back to Work Allowance and the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance combined with the removal of national minimum wage earners from the tax net are positive developments for unemployed people. However, the failure to increase both the Child Dependent Allowance and the secondary benefits income limit is disappointing.’