Coalition Ministers round on Progressive Democrats' plans for social welfare reform

THE Minister for Social Welfare Mr De Rossa, has criticised a Progressive Democrats plan for a major increase in old-age pensions as a "panic reaction" to growing public awareness of the consequences of the party's other social welfare policies.

The PDs have committed themselves to a five-year plan which would increase the pension to £100 a week. But the party leader Ms Mary Harney, combined her announcement in Cork yesterday with a sharp attack on welfare cheats.

She said the PDs would penalise dole recipients who refused reasonable offers of work or training. Social welfare law would be policed "vigorously", she added, to ensure that taxpayers did not carry the can" for cheats.

Ms Harney said economic growth meant there was enough money to pay an "economic dividend" to pensioners, and she attacked the "miserable performance" of the outgoing Government. But Mr De Rossa claimed the PDs' combined tax and welfare proposals would cost £2.8 billion, with no indication where the pension increase would come from.

The £100 pension was a "very worthwhile objective", he said, "but we have still to hear how Mary Harney proposes to pay for it, given that she is also proposing to abolish the employees' PRSI that entitles people to contributory pensions. Is she now proposing that all pensions should be means-tested?"

He accused Ms Harney of "pursuing a vendetta" against the Department of Social Welfare and recipients. "She wants to treat men and women in receipt of unemployment payments as if they were all criminal suspects and of course she wants to abolish the Department, claiming it should have no labour market role."

Meanwhile, Fine Gael also rounded on the PD policies, accusing the party of resorting to "sticking-plaster solutions". The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, said "the ultimate solution to unemployment is the creation of real jobs".

Announcing the PD plans for pensions, Ms Harney said it was the taxes and efforts of our older people which had paved the way for prosperity and this contribution should be recognised.

"There are now over 400,000 people over 65 living in this country and even though they account for more than 15 per cent of the voting population, their needs are not being dealt with by the political system," she said.