TODAY’S UNEMPLOYMENT figures would show a further increase in the live register, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin told the Dáil last night.
“Year-on-year, it is up over 165,000 on the February figures, which is an increase of 87 per cent,” she added.
Ms Hanafin said the Government recognised how vulnerable unemployed people were and it was committed to meeting their needs. Social welfare staff were working flat-out, she added.
The Minister was responding to a Fine Gael Private Members’ motion calling for an overhaul of the social welfare system to assist those in debt through unemployment. Fine Gael spokeswoman on social and family affairs Olwyn Enright said that the 9,600 people in receipt of mortgage interest supplement represented an increase of 134 per cent since the end of 2007.
The Government’s current review of the scheme was unclear, she said. “I am gravely concerned that, like many reviews carried out, it will be a review to make the scheme more difficult to obtain, rather than to help more people to access the payment.”
Ms Enright said that questions were raised about the uniformity of the scheme. If a mortgage was granted on the basis of two incomes, and one income was lost through unemployment, illness or disability, the household would still not be eligible for the supplement based on the fact that there was one income coming in.
“The fact that they have mortgage arrears seems to be irrelevant when this criterion is put into operation. There are also extreme difficulties for people who are self-employed and now find themselves unemployed, particularly in terms of producing up-to-date accounts and the fact that previous years’ accounts are generally taken into consideration.” She said that there were many people who had work last year, but were literally now without an income and still found it difficult to access the supplement.
Ms Enright called for the creation of an alternative dispute resolution mechanism for those who found themselves in debt, together with greater co-operation between the Money Advice Budgeting Service and the Legal Aid Board, so that both organisations could deal with the surge of people seeking advice and support with debts.
