Leo the Elitist needs reality check
LEO Varadkar managed to offend half the population in one fell swoop with his ‘Benefits Street’ jibe in the Dail this week. The Taoiseach was rightly criticised for referencing the controversial Channel 4 documentary during a discussion on disability payments.
Benefits Street aired in 2014 and received hundreds of complaints for its “unfair, misleading and offensive” portrayal of claimants living on one street in Birmingham.
The Channel 4 series was regarded as a programme which demonised those on the dole, and by referencing it Mr Varadkar appeared to imply some welfare recipients are not genuine.
What’s more the Fine Gael leader was responding to a question about medically assessing a person’s ability to work before granting disability and domiciliary care allowance.
So not only did he disrespect welfare recipients, his mean-spirited remark also took a swipe at those living with a disability and unable to work as a result.
It is not the first time Mr Varadkar has cast the insults net wide with a careless, throwaway remark from the safety of the Dail chamber which grants him legal privilege.
But this latest put-down has sparked a far greater reaction than most of his past jibes, prompting a plethora of cutting memes on social media.
One mocks him up as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol looking down onto the street with the caption: “You there, boy. Stop being poor.”
The Dickens’ Tiny Tim reference would be funny were it not so frighteningly accurate – because time and again this Taoiseach has shown he simply does not ‘get’ poverty.
Leo Varadkar would not have the first idea what it’s like to be so squeezed financially that you have to choose between topping up the gas meter or feeding your kids.
And why would he on a Taoiseach’s salary which, as of today, Sunday October 1, 2023, increases from €230,372 to €233,828?
Admittedly Mr Varadkar along with the rest of the Cabinet agreed in 2020 to hand back to the Exchequer 10 per cent of their combined salary and allowance.
So according to a Government source the “amount gifted” by the Taoiseach in 2023 is €24,911. Well can he afford it when it leaves him earning upwards of €215k.
His good deeds should not go unrecognised, however.
Earlier this month it emerged he and his partner had given back thousands of euros they received via the Accommodation Recognition Scheme to a young refugee from Ukraine who stayed with them for nine months.
But yet again it begs the question: Does the leader of our country really understand what it means to be living from hand to mouth, from week to week?
His back catalogue of affronts would suggest not.
First we had the ill-advised ‘welfare cheats cheat us all’ campaign he instigated in 2017 in the run-up to the Fine Gael leadership election.
The smarm did not end there however. Mr Varadkar’s ‘bank of mum and dad’ advice in 2018 for firsttime buyers struggling to get a foot on the property ladder prompted a fresh backlash. Just ask mammy and daddy for the deposit. Simples. Not forgetting his cringe-worthy inaugural speech as party leader when he said he was “standing up for people who get up early in the morning” – a phrase that earned him a “posh boy” moniker from his detractors.
Here’s a newsflash for you Taoiseach. The squeezed middle are not the only ones who get up early in the morning. Many of the country’s 12,691 homeless, 3,895 of them children, also get up at dawn.
Some roll up their sodden sleeping bags and rise from shop doorways to wander the streets. Others have to vacate their hostels or emergency accommodation for the day.
On Friday the Taoiseach stood by his Dail remarks. He said his point was that neither Benefits Street nor the film I,
Daniel Blake represent the real world. But his argument was clumsily made and caused serious offence.
So perhaps Mr Varadkar, a Trinity College graduate, should choose his words more carefully.
He needs to wake up and smell the mocha latte, because he’s on thin ice with voters and risks the ghosts of Oireachtas past coming back to haunt him.
He limped home 4,000 votes behind Sinn Fein to take a seat in his Dublin West constituency on the fifth count in 2020. He may not be so lucky in 2024.