What is the most goverment can take off social welfare?

bryaner · 22-10-2010 02:34PM

ctrl-alt-delete wrote: »

Doesn't Council Tax include refuse collection though? Which is a significant cost factor over here - I understand most on social welfare might qualify for a waiver though.

The UK have water charges too - which not all places have here.

I lived there for a good period too, and food and drink are a good deal cheaper along with clothing.

It would take a good deal of effort to do the required research to work it all out though, something i'm not going to do

Well lets say council tax and water charges cost them €2000 per annum.

Now I reckon that I could easily save €40 per week just on the grocery

shopping, theres your €2000 and the services you get for it saved without

taking any of the other savings into account.

zeds alive · 22-10-2010 02:40PM

I'm trying to figure out how people can claim people on the dole are in a better position than working people? When me and the missus were both working we had a combined income of close to €3600+ a month , now we are both un-employed and back in college we have a combined income of €1220... are we better off?

D-Generate · 22-10-2010 02:51PM

bryaner wrote: »

He's Irish working in England the last 8 years

Just off the top of my head road tax, cars, groceries, beer, restaurants, clothing all a good deal cheaper over there.

Well if you live in London then although those things are cheaper there is way higher rent than anywhere in Ireland.

I pay £520 a month for a double bedroom in a four bed house in Clapham, London. It is a pretty good and reasonable price but for a similar amount in € I would get so much more! Heck I would be able to rent a three bedroom penthouse with balcony just off North Main St, Cork City for the same price.
On top of that I pay around £60 a month for bills including council tax, electricity, gas, water, internet.

So all in all I pay £580 before I even serve myself a plate of food to eat, pay for transport or buy a pint. Sure food and stuff is cheaper but a single persons outgoings to live in London will be significantly more than the equivalent persons expenditure in Dublin. If the unemployed in London can somehow manage to survive on the £60 a week and other benefits then I can only assume that to live in say Cork on €200 a week is actually handy enough.

The dole needs to be cut, benefits with the dole need to be cut. It should only have grown in line with inflation and since we have had two consecutive years of deflation then surely the dole should have tracked this too.

Furthermore, quit saying that the well paid should be taxed more, they are already taxed enough as it is! About half the people in Ireland of working age pay little or no income tax a year. Rather than raising the income tax on high earners I would suggest lowering tax credits from the dizzying heights that they currently are. In the UK tax credits are significantly less than what they are in Ireland.

topper75 · 22-10-2010 02:52PM

I couldn't go so far as to claim that you are better off zed. People who claim such things are simply resorting to hype.

However your simple example doesn't include non-cash welfare benefits - medical card, rent allowance etc.

When you factor in these in let's say a family environment with kids, then the incentive to work can get pretty slim indeed.

That isn't right. It needs to be looked at.

Darlughda · 22-10-2010 02:56PM

earlyevening wrote: »

FYI, here are the figures which indicate the dramatic rise in unemployment benefit in the last few years.

Budget 2000: €96.50
Budget 2001: €106.66 (+10.5%)
Budget 2002: €118.80 (+11.3%)
Budget 2003: €124.80 (+5%)
Budget 2004: €134.80 (+8%)
Budget 2005: €148.80 (+10.3%)
Budget 2006: €165.80 (+11.4%)
Budget 2007: €185.80 (+12%)
Budget 2008: €197.80 (+6.4%)
Budget 2009: €204.80 (+3.5%) .

Earlyevening. Where on earth did you get these figures from?

zeds alive · 22-10-2010 03:03PM

topper75 wrote: »

However your simple example doesn't include non-cash welfare benefits - medical card, rent allowance etc.

True

I'm not opposed to cuts ,I understand they are ineveitable
But a medical card is only a beneit if you're ever sick , so until then it has a value of zero ,We get no extra cash on the btea allowance for attending college ,I now get the exact same money I would get if I chose to sit at home all day and twiddle my thumbs . Due to the costs involved with getting to college and buying materials for college, house hold bills etc we are on a really really tight budget , so a 10% cut will make getting by even harder... not looking forward to it.

empirix · 22-10-2010 03:06PM

homerjay2005 wrote: »

there are so many ways to means test it that could save millions, even billions. but they are probably jsut too lazy to do that and will just cut everybody by 10euro.

Some people on the dole,live a very comfortable life. and people also forget, theres more than just the dole, theres rent allowance, child benifit, single parents allowance.

it is all too much and people, in some cases are better off being on SW than working. a cousin of mine claimed to be getting 1500 a week in social welfare. i know another couple who are non national and get 2700 a month off social and live a top class lifestyle from it. neither of them have worked in almost 2 years.

i would cut it by 50% for people 18-21 living at home.
would cut the single parents allowance by 50%, if you want to have kids, then its your choice to feed them and cloth them.
long term unemployed, greater than 3 years, cut by 50%.
cut rent allowance by 25%,if people want to live in lush apartments and have the government pay for them, then let them pay for them themselves.

we waste more money on SW than any other country in europe, its not funny anymore.

heres hoping you dont become minister for finance!! people would die and there would be mayhem i.e. robberies, muggings,homeless would shoot up 10 fold easily, your forgetting about the price of groceries here/clothes/rent. There will always be lazy bludgers out there but lets not forget about genuine people who are unemployed and can't get work with families to support - one day this could be you, the Brits are getting extremely worried about their finances, we more or less depend on them, things could get very very bad here, don't post idiotic statements like that without thinking of others, i know many good people in this situation, who if working wouldn't have the selfish attitude you do, how old are you late teens/very early 20's! rent allowance i think is a max of 420 a month, i dont think you will be living in a lush apartment with this

empirix · 22-10-2010 03:11PM

Darlughda wrote: »

Earlyevening. Where on earth did you get these figures from?

are thos figures right? the reason the scratcher benefits rose is because the cost of living rose too, we are paying farcical prices here for food/clothes and everything else for that matter

empirix · 22-10-2010 03:13PM

D-Generate wrote: »

Well if you live in London then although those things are cheaper there is way higher rent than anywhere in Ireland.

I pay £520 a month for a double bedroom in a four bed house in Clapham, London. It is a pretty good and reasonable price but for a similar amount in € I would get so much more! Heck I would be able to rent a three bedroom penthouse with balcony just off North Main St, Cork City for the same price.
On top of that I pay around £60 a month for bills including council tax, electricity, gas, water, internet.

So all in all I pay £580 before I even serve myself a plate of food to eat, pay for transport or buy a pint. Sure food and stuff is cheaper but a single persons outgoings to live in London will be significantly more than the equivalent persons expenditure in Dublin. If the unemployed in London can somehow manage to survive on the £60 a week and other benefits then I can only assume that to live in say Cork on €200 a week is actually handy enough.

The dole needs to be cut, benefits with the dole need to be cut. It should only have grown in line with inflation and since we have had two consecutive years of deflation then surely the dole should have tracked this too.

Furthermore, quit saying that the well paid should be taxed more, they are already taxed enough as it is! About half the people in Ireland of working age pay little or no income tax a year. Rather than raising the income tax on high earners I would suggest lowering tax credits from the dizzying heights that they currently are. In the UK tax credits are significantly less than what they are in Ireland.

comparing London to Cork rents - legendary post!!

Greyfox · 22-10-2010 03:20PM

zeds alive wrote: »

I'm trying to figure out how people can claim people on the dole are in a better position than working people?

If your on the minimum wage and take away the cost of traveling to and from work and lunch money your left with only slightly more then what you would get if you were on the dole and getting rent allowance. What's the point in working 40 hours a week if you only get slightly more money then if you didn't go to work at all? It very clearly does not make sense!

The dole should be cut for people who are on the dole for more then 18 months. The lone parents allowance should also be cut by 20%, this is the only guarenteed way of making sure the small minority of people who choose this lifestyle will no longer see this as such a good option. This and cutting child benifit a little bit could make more people make sure that their using contreception methoods that are at least 99% safe which would help decrease the number of children been born into poverty

Darlughda · 22-10-2010 03:24PM

The government must be rubbing their hands in glee at how ignorant people are of the reality of poverty and what dependence on social welfare means in real terms for people struggling to get by.

Instead of hitting the richest in society, who can well afford it, the poor will be expected to pay for the excesses and corruption of the elite.

Living on €196 a week may seem easy to you for a few weeks or months.
Long term its a very different story. It is extremely hard to find a landlord who will accept rent allowance, and you are unable to claim rent allowance if the rent exceeds a certain total.

The minimum paid out of €196 a week is already €24 towards rent allowance, and when they change the rent allowance caps, do you really think a landlord is going to reduce rent?No way.

What is already happening is that many people are forced to pay the extra. So the reality of what is left to live on including heating, esb, other household bills, transport etc is coming out of a figure nearer to €150pw.

It really is a life where a tenner less makes a huge difference. For example, if you have a medical condition and you are on disablitiy benefit or allowance, already you can be paying up to €10 a month extra on prescription charges.

Many people who are unemployed are not sitting on their 'arses', any of the people I know who are long term unemployed work voluntarily for organisations in their local communities that badly need them and can't afford to employ them.

The more people spout nonesense about dole-scroungers, scum etc, the easier it will be for this government to fall heavily on the people who can least afford it in this coming budget.

By the way, EARLYEVENING, I'm still waiting for you to say where you got those figures from, because I suspect they are incorrect

empirix · 22-10-2010 03:24PM

would that help though, i am of the opinion teens would still be duffed, pressure and alcohol, they need better education on it more than anything!

D-Generate · 22-10-2010 03:30PM

empirix wrote: »

comparing London to Cork rents - legendary post!!

Well I also said it was more than you would pay for comparable in Dublin. Also if people getting £60 a week on dole and living in London then surely it is fair to compare it to someone getting approx €200 a week to live in Cork?

ibarelycare · 22-10-2010 03:34PM

Darlughda wrote: »

The government must be rubbing their hands in glee at how ignorant people are of the reality of poverty and what dependence on social welfare means in real terms for people struggling to get by.

Instead of hitting the richest in society, who can well afford it, the poor will be expected to pay for the excesses and corruption of the elite.

Living on €196 a week may seem easy to you for a few weeks or months.
Long term its a very different story. It is extremely hard to find a landlord who will accept rent allowance, and you are unable to claim rent allowance if the rent exceeds a certain total.

The minimum paid out of €196 a week is already €24 towards rent allowance, and when they change the rent allowance caps, do you really think a landlord is going to reduce rent?No way.

What is already happening is that many people are forced to pay the extra. So the reality of what is left to live on including heating, esb, other household bills, transport etc is coming out of a figure nearer to €150pw.

It really is a life where a tenner less makes a huge difference. For example, if you have a medical condition and you are on disablitiy benefit or allowance, already you can be paying up to €10 a month extra on prescription charges.

Many people who are unemployed are not sitting on their 'arses', any of the people I know who are long term unemployed work voluntarily for organisations in their local communities that badly need them and can't afford to employ them.

The more people spout nonesense about dole-scroungers, scum etc, the easier it will be for this government to fall heavily on the people who can least afford it in this coming budget.

By the way, EARLYEVENING, I'm still waiting for you to say where you got those figures from, because I suspect they are incorrect

Of course the rich will be hit. That's how taxation works. They are in a higher tax bracket and therefore pay a lot more tax than anyone else. Everyone needs to pay their fair share. The majority of people in the highest tax bracket are probably honest people who have put a lot of hard work and/or study into getting where they are today and they already contribute in a huge way to this country's economy.

zeds alive · 22-10-2010 03:36PM

Greyfox wrote: »

If your on the minimum wage and take away the cost of traveling to and from work and lunch money your left with only slightly more then what you would get if you were on the dole and getting rent allowance. What's the point in working 40 hours a week if you only get slightly more money then if you didn't go to work at all? It very clearly does not make sense!

Thats all based on the assumption/genralisation that the majority of the people claiming dole dont want to work for minimum wage and that people want to live on €196 a week for the rest of their lives.

senordingdong · 22-10-2010 03:37PM

...over 9000.

/thread.

Greyfox · 22-10-2010 03:39PM

empirix wrote: »

heres hoping you dont become minister for finance!!

Well he'd make a far better minister of finance then you, at least he's living in the real world which is a good start. Where do you think were going to get the billions we need from without these kind of cuts? Yes it's a struggle for people on benifits but in case you didn't notice it's also a struggle for the majority of people out their that have a job

Darlughda · 22-10-2010 03:41PM

ibarelycare wrote: »

Of course the rich will be hit. That's how taxation works. They are in a higher tax bracket and therefore pay a lot more tax than anyone else. Everyone needs to pay their fair share. The majority of people in the highest tax bracket are probably honest people who have put a lot of hard work and/or study into getting where they are today and they already contribute in a huge way to this country's economy.

Proportionally it does not work that way. You have tremendous faith in the richest people in Ireland. Revelations of corruption and tax evasion in recent years does not suggest that the majority of these people already contribute in a huge way to this country's economy.

bryaner · 22-10-2010 03:49PM

zeds alive wrote: »

I'm trying to figure out how people can claim people on the dole are in a better position than working people? When me and the missus were both working we had a combined income of close to €3600+ a month , now we are both un-employed and back in college we have a combined income of €1220... are we better off?

€3600 and you're mental health.

Awful_Bliss · 22-10-2010 03:50PM

I've read between 8%-10%, hopefully not more. If prices and commercial rents weren't so high they could lower the dole even further as retailers would be able to reduce their prices. They're being crippled by high rents.

By the way, would those who say people who claim the dole are lazy gits ever stop generalizing. I'm on the dole and I'm currently doing an Open University course and previously did a Fas course.

bryaner · 22-10-2010 03:50PM

Greyfox wrote: »

Well he'd make a far better minister of finance then you, at least he's living in the real world which is a good start. Where do you think were going to get the billions we need from without these kind of cuts? Yes it's a struggle for people on benifits but in case you didn't notice it's also a struggle for the majority of people out their that have a job

Living in the real world on 200k + a year your having a laugh.

chiefbrody1974 · 22-10-2010 04:26PM

CorkMan wrote: »

I assume €10-€15 euro max. Lots of people are struggling, they can't cut off too much.

im no math teacher but if you take the jobless figure as 500,000.00 and multiply that by even 30 quid dole reduction per week right, that gives you 15,000,000.00 per week times 52 780,000,000.00. still tons of cuts to go and thats drastic.

mfceiling · 22-10-2010 04:43PM

On the England/Ireland dole difference.

I worked in wimbledon for 6 weeks this year.
I could shop in morrisons and get enough food for my 10 and 1 grub breaks for about £25.

The local pubs did a 2 for £5 dinner deal every evening with a choice of 5-6 different dinners.

I came home to work in galway.
€7.70 to pay the tolls to get there. €40 for the grub for the breaks.
First pub i stopped at that evening....the cheapest starter was €5.95 and the cheapest dinner was €13.95

Our cost of living is still too high

Tiddlypeeps · 22-10-2010 06:05PM

I don't know about the situation for unemployed couples with mortgages and children, but for a single person renting the dole is waaaaaaay too much.

Even in Dublin city center if your paying more than 70 a week for rent your paying too much and should move somewhere cheaper (even if its not as pretty). If you have been renting for more than 9 months then about 50 euro of that rent will be paid for you. If you haven't been renting for more than 9 months then odds are your in position where you can move back in with mammy, as it hasn't been that long since you left.

That leaves at least 180 euro for bills and food. ESB in shared accommodation shouldn't usually be more than 30 per week (that's including the internet, which is an unnecessary luxury). You can live quite comfortably spending 50 per week on food, 20 a week for food can be done, but its hard. That's an excess of 100 euro.

So to get by all that is needed in benefits (including rent allowance) is 150 max. So JA for a single person should only be 100 euro, with rent allowance of up to 50 euro.

The dole is their to stop people going homeless and allow them to survive until they find a job. It is not their to fund peoples cigarette addiction or to fund boozing, and should not leave someone with enough money in their pocket at the end of the week for savings.

earlyevening · 22-10-2010 06:21PM

Darlughda wrote: »

By the way, EARLYEVENING, I'm still waiting for you to say where you got those figures from, because I suspect they are incorrect

I'm not online 24/7. A simple internet search will reveal all for you.

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2003/AnnexC.aspx

Everything is there since 1996 if you want to spend some time reading it. I need not say anything more about the huge increases. The figures say it all.

P.S. Look at the huge increases in the contributory pension too....and tax credits...child benefit...everything really.

Awful_Bliss · 22-10-2010 07:10PM

Good God Tiddlypeeps. You should go work for Michael O'Leary as Ryanair's accountant, you're that stingy. Oh, and a few grammar lessons wouldn't go astray.

Oranage2 · 22-10-2010 07:38PM

Depends on circumstances - I see a lot of people aged 18 - 26 who live at home who can buy Ipads and drink most days of the week so in there cases i think they should cut their welfare to like 100€ or/and make them do work like clean streets 3 days a week

Others should be means tested because some case are really hard hitting like a family with a mortgage that has only one person working, you hear stories that they have to live off 40 euro after all there bills, maybe these people can get a little extra

Also single parents get rent allowance and 200euro in benefits which should be cut to 100 euro too and make them clean streets or something similar 3 times a week.

St._Andalou · 22-10-2010 07:46PM

Pdfile wrote: »

their as actual jobs out their just not worth anyones time doing them as they might have to be productive...

i dunno and dont care, the whole country can sink ima stay afloat.

There are? So why are over 400,000 people on the dole? There are some jobs, yes, but not a lot. If you think that all of those 400,000 people would rather be collecting dole than working then you're deluded.

Sardonicat · 22-10-2010 07:50PM

You only get rent allowance if your landlord agrees to it. I spent 6 months looking for a compliant landlord and got nowhere. No-one in Dept. of Social Protection or HSE will help you find one. Despite the fact that I discovered too late that I was in a sub-letting situation and the F***kers I was renting of were claiming rent allowance nothing was done about the landlord and tennants who were breaking the law when I reported it. Try living on 70 yoyos a week with the threat of being made homeless hanging over you and see how you like it.

And what will you do with the people who are employed to clean the streets when you make people on the dole do it? Sack them and make them break stones?

Tiddlypeeps · 22-10-2010 08:00PM

Awful_Bliss wrote: »

Good God Tiddlypeeps. You should go work for Michael O'Leary as Ryanair's accountant, you're that stingy. Oh, and a few grammar lessons wouldn't go astray.

Apologies for the terrible grammar and spelling. I've always been useless at that kind of thing.

I'm not stingy, I'm realistic. I get just under 200 a week and I spend it, but I know I could get by with a lot less. I don't need those few cans I have a week, or the odd take away. I could eat a lot cheaper foods. I have a friend who is that stingy, he gets the same and saves 100 per week.

We can't afford to keep handing out the social welfare payments that we are. Why should the tax payer have to fund somebodies cigarettes, drink or savings?

What is the most goverment can take off social welfare?

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