1,700 Kerry families struggling
THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES WHO NEED STATE SUPPORT DOUBLED SINCE 2011
THE number of Kerry families receiving state support has doubled since Fine Gael took power with Labour in 2011.
According to new figures released by Leo Varadkar there are now 1,720 Kerry parents who have jobs but still need welfare payments to keep their families out of poverty.
That is compared to just 873 when the Fine Gael Labour coalition government took office in 2011.
The Family Income Supplement (FIS) is a weekly tax free welfare payment that is provided to working parents on low incomes.
Households that are home to one or more children and where the parent or parents’ combined income from work is less than €511 are eligible for the benefit.
The payment is only open to employees and self employed people cannot claim it, even if their incomes are similarly low and circumstances are similar.
It was introduced – in the midst of a deep recession – by the Labour Health and Social Welfare Minister Barry Desmond in 1984 to prevent in-work poverty for low paid workers and as an incentive for the unemployed to seek work.
In Kerry the number of families seeking the benefit jumped by over 350 in 2013 and it has continued to rise by about 100 a year since then. In the Dáil last week Social Protection Minister Leo Varadker insisted that the huge increase in families receiving the payment – which jumped from around 29,000 to 57,000 nationally since 2011 – was a positive development.
The outgoing minister said the surge was due to the increase in employment generally and a widening of the FIS entitlement threshold, two factors that mean more families are eligible for the payment.
The increase in the income threshold was introduced in 2016, by which time the number of claimants was already almost 56,000. Cork Solidarity TD Mick Barry said the increase really suggested a huge increase in the number of people working in low paid jobs.
“The number of people in employment has indeed gone up. While the numbers in employment have gone up, the numbers in receipt of the family income supplement have gone up at a far greater rate. There is a sharp scissors effect there. I believe it is undeniable that it reflects a growth in low-paid employment,” Deputy Barry told the Dáil.
“I suspect that the Minister has had his own eye on a particular job for a long time now. Presumably, he has been getting up early in the morning in order to get it. Here, we are talking about 57,000 workers who have been getting up early in the morning too. For them, it is for low-paid work. It is so low paid that it has to be topped up by the State in order to take families out of poverty,” added Deputy Barry.