Mary Coughlan's social welfare cutbacks will have a devastating impact on the already marginalised. Colm Keena examines the plight of two families.
The cutbacks being introduced by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, will have a devastating effect on some of the most vulnerable people in society but will save the Exchequer practically nothing.
The following are two real life examples of people in very difficult circumstances who are representative of areas targeted by the cutbacks. That the changes being introduced in these areas by Ms Coughlan will save relatively minuscule amounts for the State has been admitted by her spokeswoman.
"Fred" is a foreign worker who has been here for the past two years with his wife, "Nora", and their young child. He has a full-time job, earns the minimum wage and gets €300 per week. The family lives in a rented house and pays €210 per week rent. Because Fred's visa is for the job he has, he cannot move to a better one, or take on a second job.
Fred and Nora qualify for a family income support payment of €46 per week, bringing the total available to them, after rent, to €136 per week. It is not much, and when they were means tested by a Community Welfare Officer (CWO), the officer decided Fred and Nora fell below the income floor that applies for Supplementary Welfare Payments (SWA), and were therefore eligible for a rent allowance payment.
There was a hitch, however. People in full-time employment are not allowed to get SWA. This has been the case since 1977. To get around it CWOs have encouraged spouses of people in full-time employment to make applications. Nora applied and was approved for a weekly rent allowance of €65.
A legislative change now being introduced by Ms Coughlan will mean that the spouses of persons in full-time employment will no longer be allowed to apply for SWA. According to Ms Coughlan's press officer, the measure gives effect "to the original intention that SWA should not be paid in cases where there is full-time employment in the household". About 1 per cent of couples in receipt of rent allowance - around 135 cases - will be affected, saving the State €1 million per annum. It is a tiny piece of bookkeeping and the number of people involved is relatively small - but the effect on their lives will be devastating.
Making rent allowance payments under SWA to a working household strays into the area of housing provision, something that is not the responsibility of Ms Coughlan's Department, according to her spokeswoman. Similarly, she says, another cutback being introduced on SWA payments to help with crèche fees, will address the fact that these payments stray into an area more properly the concern of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
In other words, the cutbacks are being introduced by the Department because the Minister feels the payments should be provided by other Departments. No thought seems to have been given to the effect these moves would have on the people the State was assisting.
Mary is married and has three children. Her husband had a lot of problems, their marriage got into difficulty and eventually he abandoned Mary and his children. Mary discovered that her husband had not been paying the rent and had run up debts, including debts in her name. Her life had been pretty difficult anyway but after her husband's disappearance she became depressed, possibly suicidal. Then she received an eviction notice.
The Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) gives free financial advice to people with serious financial difficulties. Mary went to MABS and an advice officer helped her sort out her problems. The officer negotiated deals with her various creditors and agreed repayment schedules. The deal involved Mary paying €60 per week but this was too much for her to manage. Working with the MABS officer and her CWO, it was agreed that if Mary managed the €60 per week repayment, the CWO would give a payment of €30. The payment is dependent on Mary keeping up her end of the deal. The advantages of this service are obvious. With a monitored repayment schedule in place, Mary is being assisted in working her way out of her difficulties. If her debts were not dealt with, it is likely she would have been evicted.
A circular recently issued by Ms Coughlan's Department to CWOs instructs them to end MABS payments. As with the rent allowance change, one effect of the MABS cutback will be to restrict the range of discretion available to CWOs in their work to fight hardship. The saving involved in the MABS cutback is €750,000, out of an overall SWA budget for 2004 of €637 million.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said MABS payments were being made "because the people concerned had entered into repayment arrangements that were so onerous that they did not have enough income left to meet their basic needs", and that this was "unrealistic".
This seems daft. A service funded by the Department arranged these deals on behalf of people who are in severe financial difficulty.
The Department says these people should not enter into such "onerous" repayment schedules - but the schedules are presumably the best that MABS could organise in the circumstances. What exactly does the Department think these people should do?
The cutback will affect 371 people. Again, the impact on the people concerned will be severe, while the savings involved will be minuscule.
You'd have to wonder what the Minister was focusing on when she decided on these and other similar moves.
Are these the sort of policies her colleagues in Fianna Fáil want to see introduced in their name? The cutbacks should be reversed.