Government Plans to Target Rent Supplement Outrageous-O'Leary

Government Plans to Target Rent Supplement Outrageous-O'Leary

Sinn Féin councillor Chris O’Leary has slammed the government’s announcement it plans to cut €700 million from social welfare spending in the budget, days after it handed over €715 million to unsecured bondholders at Anglo Irish Bank.

Cllr O’Leary said:

“There is a bitter irony in the fact that €700 million is to be cut from social welfare spending in the next budget, given that only last week the government paid an identical sum to unsecured bondholders at Anglo Irish Bank.
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“Some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society are to be targeted by the government in its effort to make savings, at the same time as wealthy investors abroad who gambled on the Irish property boom are being handed vast sums of taxpayers’ money.”

“There is further irony in the fact that the Department of Social Welfare is to take the lion’s share of cuts in current expenditure at a time of record unemployment and under a Labour minister.”

“The decision to target the Rent Supplement for substantial savings is particularly outrageous. Given that the government has failed utterly to provide for peoples’ social housing needs – there are 9,000 families waiting for housing in this city alone – an attack on rent supplement will mean a “double whammy” for people those unable to get a mortgage or afford the very high rents in the private sector. The result will be to deepen the housing crisis, forcing more people into sub-standard or over-crowded accommodation or onto the streets.”

For further information or comment contact Cllr Chris O’Leary @ 087-2794307