Cut in widows' payment 'mean and miserly'

DAIL REPORT: Ordinary taxpayers would much prefer their hard-earned taxes going to provide a "little protection" for widows rather than to "feather-bed the super rich", the Dáil has been told during a debate on the €6 million social welfare cuts which will affect widows and lone parents.

Labour's Social and Family Affairs spokesman, Mr Willie Penrose, called for the Government to "do the decent thing" and reverse "this deplorable, mean and miserly" cut. "The amount of money is tiny when compared to Government expenditure of more than €40 billion in this current year."

However, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, who last night met representatives of those affected, said she had assured them of the government's commitment in its agreed programme to increase the pensions to €200 within the lifetime of the Government.

She also stressed that the changes did not mean "the removal of the preferential treatment of widows and widowers within the social welfare system".

The Minister said the decision "follows a general principle, common to social security systems across the world, that a person is only entitled to one income maintenance payment at any one time". It was introduced in January and applied to new claimants only.

Mr Penrose, who was speaking during the third private member's debate to be tabled jointly with Fine Gael and the Green Party, said the Exchequer returns for the first two months of this year showed the tax take was running €430 million ahead of target. The cutbacks were not necessary but if they were, "surely there were many other groups who could have been asked to make the sacrifice required rather than asking widows to make sacrifices". He said the Government spent €100,000 a day on consultant advisers and if they were dispensed with for just two months, "it would have provided the money necessary to avoid penalising widows".

The Government could also have reviewed the amount of taxpayers' money spent on property-based capital allowance, which allowed the top 400 earners in the State to avail of tax benefits worth €70 million.

The change in welfare will end the entitlement of widows, widowers and lone parents to an additional half-rate payment of disability benefit, injury benefit and unemployment benefit, the Labour TD said.

Fine Gael's spokesman, Mr Michael Ring, said the widows and widowers were attacked by the Government "and we see the super-rich getting away with murder".

He asked who "thought up the savage 16 cuts. The man or woman in the Department who thought it up should be sent to Vietnam or some place because there is no way they could live in a civilised society."

The Green Party spokesman, Mr Dan Boyle, said there was a tax system in place that rewarded people for owning property and having capital and yet penalised people and "takes away safety nets for people who not only need social welfare as a cushion, but very often need social welfare as a crutch".

He also accused the Minister of "failing the people you are meant to represent at the Cabinet table". Mr Boyle said the Minister for Finance had told the Fianna Fáil ardfheis that "we've had the pain, let's share the gain", but who was gaining, he asked.