An Bord Snip: Social and Family Affairs

Back in January, when it became clear that Bord Snip wanted to hit social welfare benefits hard, Minister Mary Hanafin tried to ease the pain. “It’s very difficult to take anything away”, she said, insisting that the priority would be to protect vulnerable people who are reliant on social welfare.

That hasn’t happened.

The Bord Snip report is basically a sucker punch to the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

Understandably, staff cuts isn’t a big focus – this is one of the only areas of government that could probably benefit from more people working there right now, not less. Instead, the report looks to cut a huge €1.8 billion from the Department by cutting benefits.

The report suggests a cut of 5% to all social welfare rates. Child benefit payments would be cut by a massive 20%. This would mean a cut of €30 per month for the first two children and €67 per month for each subsequent child.

The Christmas bonus wouldn’t be given out in 2010 and probably not in future years either, until things get better. The Family Support Agency would be abolished.

The retirement age for the State pension (both contributory and non-contributory) may be raised.

One part of the report looks at PRSI, and the implication seems to be that PRSI rates will be increased.  The Social Insurance Fund has been steadily decreasing over the last year and a half and the report predicts that it could run into a deficit by 2010.

Household benefits packages, including allowances for electricity, telephone and free television licences for older people, should be treated as taxable income.

One of the most significant (and unpredicted) measures of the report is that it recommends stopping people from claiming two social welfare benefits and ensuring that they only get a primary one. This would stop people from claiming additional benefits such as Carers Allowances, Illness Benefit or Family Income Supplement, for example.

The authors of the report acknowledge that these measures could cause significant difficulties and suggest that care should be taken to avoid the inadvertent ‘accumulation of measures’ for any individual.

The much-debated Family Income Supplement will be changed to stop the double payment received by some people.

There are also a number of smaller cost-cutting measures, such as merging the Pensions Board with the Financial Regulator and merging the  Pensions Ombudsman with the Financial Service Ombudsman. It also suggests re-examining the level of Rent Supplement payment on a regional basis, as well as reducing the length of time that someone can claim rent supplement for.

There are probably less suggestions for the DoSFA than for other departments, as the focus has basically been on cutting benefits and little else. Ironically, as Ronan Lyons has noted, the DoSFA is “the only Department whose spending looks set to increase no matter what, due to the scale of our unemployment challenge.”