Lucinda’s spot on – welfare reform is vital
FORMER minister Lucinda Creighton is never fearful of engaging with a subject that raises the hackles of the liberal left.
And it is to her credit that she says, in an exclusive interview with this paper, that her newly formed grouping, the Reform Alliance, plans to introduce radical policies to reform social welfare.
That the social welfare system needs a massive overhaul is a fact that will not come as news to the thousands of taxpayers who witness the widespread daily abuse of the system that fuels resentment among the hard-working and does a terrible disservice to those who truly deserve it.
Ms Creighton has her work cut out for her. Only last week we were informed that a calculator proved those in lower paid jobs are better off in employment than on social welfare. But as Professor Richard Tol, formerly of the ESRI, points out, this outdated mode of thought ignores the basic truth every working parent understands clearly: allowing for the cost of travel, food and the inconvenient truth that workers must work.
When we questioned the Department of Social Protection about its reform plans, it referred to measures such as a planned housing payment that will be maintained when recipients move from welfare to work, and said that an advisory group was examining ways in which the tax and welfare system could be changed to incentivise people to return to work.
It would not be wrong to suggest, as Ms Creighton has, that this is merely ‘tinkering around the edges’. One just needs to look to our neighbours across the Irish Sea to see what radical reform means.
The British government is introducing a welfare cap of £26,000 – the average income for a working family – and a universal credit, which brings six benefits and tax credits into one payment.
The Tories also want to limit child benefit to the first two children in an unemployed family. Meanwhile, more than one in four people claiming Incapacity Benefit have been certified ‘fit for work’ after a new medical examination was introduced.