INOU rejects calls for further cuts in social welfare payments

22 Jun 2009

The INOU strongly rejects any calls for further cuts in social welfare payments. Economic commentators have made much of the emergence of deflation across a range of goods and services leading the Minister for Finance to state that welfare recipients have seen an 8% increase in their income this year. This simply is not the reality facing unemployed people and others: what so many commentators have failed to take into account is the impact of recent budgetary changes on social welfare recipients. The loss of the Christmas Bonus; the increase in the minimum contribution towards one's own rent; and the decrease in the level of Rent Supplement support means that many welfare recipients are seeing an actual decrease of 5% in their income for 2009. To add a further burden on those surviving on such modest incomes is simply not acceptable.
The short sighted nature of these calls for social welfare rates to be reduced is most striking. It is important to note the local economic impact these cuts will have as social welfare recipients spend their payments locally on such basic items as food, rent and public transport. The INOU strongly rejects any calls for further reductions in social welfare payments: not today, not this year, nor in the next budget.