Working widowed 'hardest hit'

Working widows and widowers will be one of the groups hit the hardest by Budget 2011, it was claimed today.

Under the measures announced yesterday, the contributory pension for widows and widowers under 66 was reduced by €8 to €193.50, while new Universal Social Charge will apply to income in excess of the pension. Previously, a widow's income was exempt from the health levy. Tax credits have also been reduced, with the credit for workers in the first year of widowhood alos lowered by 10 per cent.

Working widows and widowers may also be hit by cuts to child benefit.

"The cumulative effect is that working widows with below average-waged jobs are facing Budget cut-backs in the order of €50 per week. This is completely disproportionate to all other groups affected by the Budget," Labour Party spokeswoman on social protection Roisin Shortall said.

She described the detail on the social charge as "sparse and sneaky", with full details emerging late last night.

Fine Gael said it would oppose the Social Welfare Bill this evening unless the Government reversed the cuts for blind people, widows, carers and people with disabilities.

Social protection spokesman Michael Ring accused the Government of "punishing" the most vulnerable members of society.

"There is no Croke Park Agreement for carers, or blind people, widows, and people with disabilities," he said.

The party claimed there was "no economic or social case" to cut €8 per week from the incomes of widows, carers, the blind and the disabled.

"Why would a Government be so socially blind as to include vulnerable persons who contribute such a small amount of tax anyway?" Fine Gael's finance spokesman Michael Noonan said.

Mr Noonan described the Budget as "the budget of a puppet Government, who are doing what they have been told to do by the IMF, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank, so that the State can draw down the bail-out funds now that the country is insolvent".

Age Action said while it welcomed the fact that there were no cuts to the State penison, older people dependent on social welfare payments other than the State pension would be hit by the measures announced in the Budget.

"With one in 10 older people at risk of poverty and many more hovering around the poverty line, any cut in the State Pension would have caused huge hardship," spokesman Eamon Timmins said.

"However, for widows under-66, those on invalidity pension and carers will all be hit."