The first act of this week’s two-part budget will make for grim reading for most people, although it is larger families in particular that have been targeted for the most swingeing cuts.
A couple with four children will be worse of by close to €800 a year after the Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin announced that child benefit for third and subsequent children is to be cut from up to €177 to €140 a month over the next two years.
Under current arrangements, mothers get €140 for their first two children, €167 for the third and €177 for the fourth and subsequent children.
A family with four children currently receives €624 each month. This will fall to €560 by 2013, a drop of €768 a year.
The Minister said that the standardisation of the rates of payments of child benefit would save €47 million next year and over €70 million a year when it is fully implemented.
Next year, the monthly rate for the third child will be €148 and for the fourth and each subsequent child will be €160. The grant of €635 which is paid at birth on all multiple births and an additional grant of €635 paid when the children are four and 12 will be discontinued.
“I understand that these measures will have implications for some families," the Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton said. However, she said families at risk of poverty "will be more likely to benefit from supplementary child related payment such as child related increases to social welfare payments and the Family Income Supplement."
Mr Howlin also announced the scrapping of the back-to-school allowance for two- and three-year-olds and a reduction in payments for all eligible people. The scheme offers a one-off payment to eligible families to assist with the extra costs when their children start school each autumn.
Last year, more than €7 million was paid out in back-to-school allowances last year to parents of 40,000 children aged three or under and who do not actually go to school.
These payments are to be abolished and the rates for primary school and secondary school children will fall from €200 and €305 to €150 and €250 respectively.
The period people can claim a fuel allowance has been cut by six weeks from 32 weeks to 26 in a move which will cost those in receipt of the payment €120 per year.
As had been widely flagged, the standard social welfare payment of €188 was untouched, as was the non-contributory state pension, which stays at €219.
While Minister for Health James Reilly’s warning about a €50 per annum medical-card fee did not materialise, moves to eliminate the subsidy provided for private medical treatment carried out in public hospitals could add over €500 to the cost of an average private health insurance policy for family of four.
Legislation will be introduced to abolish the existing system of designated private/public beds in public hospitals. and to allow hospitals to raise charges in respect of all private patients.
This plan to impose charges on insurance firms for subscribers treated in public hospital beds which are not specifically designated for fee-paying patients is likely to see premiums increase by at least 25 per cent next year and by even more in 2013.
The Department of Health currently charges a daily rate for a private bed in a regional or voluntary teaching hospital of just over €1,000, and €889 for semi-private accommodation. Insurers claim every 10 per cent increase in the cost of private beds pushes up the price of health insurance premiums by more than 3 per cent.
The threshold for the Drug Payment Scheme has risen by €12 a month to €132.
Registration fees for third level students are to increase by €250 to €2,250 while maintenance grants for new postgraduate students have been abolished.
