Cuts in funding for community employment schemes are having a devastating effect in social terms. And single parent families and other individuals will be forced into even greater deprivation and poverty by new social welfare rules and regulations.
It is not just scandalous, but short-sighted in the extreme, that the least well-off sections of our society are being treated in this fashion. The Coalition Government should take the opportunity offered by next Wednesday's Budget to undo these social injustices by providing an increase in funding.
Given the wealth of our society, anyone with a social conscience must regret the way in which government savings are being made. In the last year, the number of persons at work on community employment schemes has been reduced by almost 17 per cent. This has forced the closure of local development initiatives and denied individuals gainful employment at a saving to the State of only €28 a week. Proposals for a return to the status quo, through a revised scheme, have been resisted by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
Housing charities like Focus Ireland and agencies like the Society of St Vincent de Paul have drawn attention to a crisis in homelessness and growing levels of poverty. The number of people able to afford private accommodation has fallen as house prices rise. And local authority housing lists continue to grow. In spite of that, rent supplement will be refused in future, unless the applicant has been in private accommodation for six months. An allowance designed to encourage single-parent families take up work is being cut. The back-to-education allowance and child dependence allowance are being reduced.
And a supplement for crèche catering will be discontinued as one of 16 measures designed to save € 58 million in 2004. There is an appalling lack of joined-up-government-policy in all of this.
The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, has reduced rent supplements on the grounds that housing is the responsibility of the Minister for the Environment. In the same way, cuts in community employment schemes by the Department of Enterprise and Employment transfer the cost to social welfare. The overall effect of these and other cuts, such as the removal of funding crèche care in places like Ballymun, is a diminution in social cohesion and the removal of a second chance for people to remake their lives. Crime and vandalism thrive in circumstances of poverty and social exclusion. Rather than put millions into special savings schemes, the Government would do better by investing in deprived communities and helping families at risk.