ERIC CONROY,
Sir, - There has been a lot of interest in the current benchmarking review for public servants. However, there has been no mention of the other benchmarking policy issue, the benchmarking of social welfare to create a fairer society.
The Government is committed to achieving a minimum social welfare weekly payment rate of €150 a week in 2002 terms by 2007, a target which would put the weekly unemployment assistance payment, for instance, at 30 per cent of the current gross average industrial earnings (GAIE). But there is no commitment to maintain social welfare payments at this 30 per cent level.
It is hard for those on social welfare to believe the Government is committed to social partnership when benchmarking is confined to the public sector. The perception that those on social welfare are being further marginalised is heightened by the fact that public sector benchmarking will give Dáil TDs a pay rise worth an extra €160 a week, a sum 35 per cent greater than the maximum income of most unemployed people.
Without benchmarking social welfare, these wage increases for civil servants will further exacerbate the growing divide between the well-off and the marginalised in Irish society.
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed is calling on the Government to implement social welfare benchmarking at 30 per cent of GAIE in the lifetime of this Dáil to curb the increasing gap between the rich and the poor in Ireland today. - Yours, etc.,
ERIC CONROY, General Secretary, INOU, North Richmond Street, Dublin 1.