New Welfare Bill: reform can't be just about cutting budgets
Issued : Friday 28 May, 2010
Statement by Roisin Shortall TD
Minister of State, Department of Health with responsibility for Primary Care
“The Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2010 published today contains several measures that are likely to prove controversial, including proposals to "activate" jobseekers, lone parents and people with disabilities. Unfortunately, the Bill is all stick, and no carrot. Unless the proposed changes are accompanied by other measures they may simply have the effect of further impoverishing people who are already on subsistence levels of income.
“Moving people off welfare and into work should be the central concern of social policy. In principle, there is nothing wrong with a ‘get tough’ policy on those who abuse our welfare system or see it as a way of life. Welfare should be about supporting those genuinely in need and helping them back on their feet as quickly as possible.
“However, reforming welfare can't just be about cutting social welfare budgets and must have regard to the very human challenges facing people who rely on income support.
“Without genuine job opportunities and access to quality training, education and literacy improvement, drugs rehabilitation , childcare , and services for people with disability and in particular mental health, these reforms are worthless. Indeed, until there is a full integration of FAS employment support services with the Department of Social Protection, the Department itself won't be able to act on these measures.
“The reform of the rules for lone parents alone will simply add 12,000 more people to the live register over the next six years. Reforms in this area were first suggested by the late Seamus Brennan when he was Minister. Activation of this group was meant to go hand in hand with improved training and childcare services, the ending of the ban on cohabitation, and the introduction of a parental allowance. These are nowhere to be found in the bill.
“And yet another social welfare bill is published without reforming the rules for Mortgage Interest Supplement and Rent Supplement or the very many other poverty traps that lie at the heart of why thousands of people remain on welfare for so long.”
