Apology as Bill on disability pulled

THE MINISTER for Social Protection has apologised for the worry caused to people with disabilities and their families arising from social welfare changes, which she said were proposed as reforms.

As she introduced the Social Welfare Bill, which will give effect to the cuts announced in the budget, Joan Burton withdrew sections of the Bill dealing with the disability allowance and domiciliary care allowance.

“I am sorry if these proposals caused anxiety among people with disabilities and their families,” she said. She had listened “in particular to the concerns of families with severely disabled children” and had asked barrister Ita Mangan, who chairs the advisory group on tax and social welfare issues, to carry out a review of the two allowances.

Ms Burton, highlighting the need to have one social welfare payment for one person, said: “It is no longer possible to have a social welfare system where some people get more than one primary weekly payment if we want to avoid reducing the level of weekly payments generally”. The Bill also reduces the rebate from 60 per cent to 15 per cent for companies which make staff redundant. “We should not incentivise redundancy,” she said. State repayments were not common in many EU member states; in the UK employers funded 100 per cent of the payment with “no recovery from the state”.

“Given the low level of employer PRSI payable in Ireland, I do not see why we should dip into a fund that is already in deficit to compensate often profitable companies for the cost of making their employees redundant in Ireland and, in some cases, transferring their employment abroad.”

Fianna Fáil social protection spokesman Barry Cowen highlighted the “irresponsible manner” in which Fine Gael and Labour in opposition had promised that in government it would reverse many of the measures in the last budget and Finance Bill.

The Government “immediately carried out its first U-turn” by implementing the same budget. “They were great men in opposition with great populist rhetoric,” Mr Cowen said.