Madam, – I think the question posed on your website recently (“Are social welfare payments a disincentive to taking up full-time paid employment?”) was misleading, and unfair to those of us on social welfare payments.
I am a single mother with an honours degree in interior architecture. I have been unable to find work in the design industry for nearly two years now.
I am currently receiving the One Parent Family Payment.
My five-year old daughter has just started school and attends the after-school childcare. I receive subvention towards the after-school care which allows me to look for work, and I am willing to work. However, if I get a job that is more than 20 hours a week I lose the subvention payment and the childcare cost goes up from €120 to €510 per month. This is fine if I get a permanent job that pays €30,000 per annum, but if I get a job that only pays €10,000 per annum, I cannot afford to take that job as I am then unable to pay my childcare fees and if I can’t pay them, I can’t work.
The question posed should have been: “Is the social welfare system geared to allow people to go back to work?” My answer to that would be no. You lose too many vital payments too quickly. Neither I, nor any other person, would put their family’s welfare at risk to work for less money than they can survive on. If the payment brackets were changed to allow people to go back to work and earn a decent amount of money, within reason, then people would have the incentive to go and get work and if people are working and paying their taxes, then the tax they pay goes towards paying their social welfare. People could then work and move up in a business and eventually come off social welfare altogether.
But the way things are set up now it is impossible for people to come off social welfare, as the very few jobs that are out there are very low paid – but not low enough that you don’t lose your social welfare benefits.
If this country is to get out of this economic crash, the social welfare system needs to be changed immediately. – Yours, etc,