Hypothetical Q.If you don't want to work

madisona said:
Ok. sponger remark unfair and withdrawn.I was reacting to the the landlady who said that it galled her to see the unemployed getting social welfare.

However if people paid rent to landlords from their unemployment assistance\benefit there would be no issue. Supply and Demand would mean that landlords would have no choice but to accept what people could afford to pay.

However this is not the case. Rent Allowance cheques are only given to those who can prove that the full amount ends up in a Landlords pocket.
It is therefore a subsidy or welfare payment to landlords. The fact that landlords give something in exchange does not change this.

e.g. suppose the unemployed were told that they would get €10 a week Bread allowance. However the full amount had to be given to a baker in exchange for one loaf of bread and recepients had to show proof that this had occured. I would see this as a subsidy to bakers rather than the unemployed.
Click to expand...

If people paid landlords directly from their jobseekers allowance money then you would find that jobseekers allowance would have to increase dramatically to cover this or there would be a lot of people with no roof over their heads looking for housing from the government. An increase in the jobseekers allowance would only encourage MORE people to faff about and not bother looking for work.
 
jaybird said:
How about even tax relief on childcare costs? That would help a huge amount of people, it would certainly help me! It seems like you can get tax relief on practically everything but childcare, and that is the biggest monthly outlay for a lot of people.
Click to expand...
Tax relief wouldn't help those who most need it, who would be paying little or no tax anyway. The laws of supply & demand mean that it would almost certainly lead to an equivalent increase in creche costs, resulting in a large subsidy for creche operators and little benefit for their customers.
 
madisona said:
Ok. sponger remark unfair and withdrawn.I was reacting to the the landlady who said that it galled her to see the unemployed getting social welfare.
Click to expand...
Now you're withdrawing the 'sponger remark' and misquoting me as well!

I never said I was galled by the fact that the unemployed get social welfare. I was galled by the fact that a woman with 3 kids and a permanent partner was claiming to be living on her own, claiming rent allowance and lone parent allowance etc., when she was in fact intending to rent my property with her working partner. She specifically asked me not to put his name on the lease as she was claiming rent allowance in her name only and he wasn't supposed to be living with her.

The reason I did not want to rent my property to these people is that I would have knowingly been assisting them to defraud the State, the taxpayers.

Rent Allowance can be directly payable into the Bank account the Landord by the local Health Board with the agreement of the tenant.

Methinks there's a green eyed monster here! ;)
 
It is informative that your ire and annoyance is reserved for the woman struggling to bring up three kids and who needs a place to stay and that the fraud in question that galls you is that she has a boyfriend. perhaps a condition of her landlord receiving rent allowance payments should be that she wears and chastity belt and signs a declaration that she will not seek a partner. Maybe you should consider that working is not an option for this woman as working at a minimun wage job would not provide enough for child care for three children. However perhaps it is better if poor women are sterilized or revolutionary concept , provided with social housing.

Why is it that you are not upset at the benificiary of this "fraud" the person that actually gets this welfare money, namely the landlord.
Now let me be clear, my annoyance is not so much at landlords, but rather at landlords who are annoyed at poor people who are in effect forced to commit fraud for their benefit. The rent allowance system also acts as a poverty trap and a major disincentive to work.

Of course this issue would not arise if unemployment was increased to give people enough to pay for accomadation themselves or if alternatively means tested social housing was available with rent payments to state linked to income.
 
Give it a rest madisona - so these poor people are forced to commit fraud and are also disincentivised to work - aw poor diddums!! Anyone who commits fraud does so willingly - nobody is forced to do anything. Here's a thought - don't have kids in the first place? No wait that would imply some sort of responsibility on the parent! Sure there are probably some very valid cases of people struggling to get by but there are also a heck of a lot of people out there ripping off the state by unlawfully taking these benefits. The problem is finding the valid cases - no easy task I'm sure!
 
I accept that there may be merit in Delgirls other point. i.e. should a man who meets a woman who has children from a previous relationship and who is on welfare , be legally obliged to take over responsibility from the state for financially providing for and supporting those children, before he is allowed to have a relationship with this woman.

as for not having kids, I did suggest the forced sterilzation of poor women as a possible way to assuage the ire of the well off. However landlords should be aware that this could result in less transfers from the state to their pockets.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know of at least one case where a 'single' mother is claiming single parents and living with the father. Its not uncommon. I agree with an earlier post that those who are claiming UB now are probably unemployable.. That a few of them may be working in the back economy is beside the point, the vast majority neither want work nor do employers want them. as for changing jobs and waiting 6 weeks. I suspect it depends on where you are and where you worked. Mrs Cu left employment around 3 years ago. when into sw office to sign on and the social welfare officer stated something like - 'you won't have to wait the 6 weeks as everyone leaves that place sooner or later'. As it turned out she found employment inside the 6 weeks and refunded around €160 back to SW that year. (and got a receipt for it)
 
delgirl said:
A couple came to see it with their 3 children - he was introduced as the Boyfriend and in later conversation it transpired that he was the father of the 3 children.
Click to expand...
Madisona, you're either incapable of understanding what is being written here or are deliberately mis-quoting me to provoke a response.

The fraud is not the fact that she happens to have a boyfriend - if you'd care to read my original post (see above) you'd realise that the boyfriend is the father of the 3 kids, the oldest one was 7, and even though they are not married, it is his responsiblity to provide for his partner and children particularly if he is employed - just like the rest of us!

You've obviously got a huge problem with landlords - I have no idea where that stems from - but your reasoning is completely off the wall.
 
When Seamus Brennan was Minister for Social & Family Affairs, I heard him state his intention to remove the requirement to be living on your own to be eligible for such benefits, largely because it was unenforceable. Not sure if this has happened or will happen. Come back, Seamus - all is forgiven.
 
madisona said:
Now let me be clear, my annoyance is not so much at landlords, but rather at landlords who are annoyed at poor people who are in effect forced to commit fraud for their benefit.
Click to expand...

Nobody is FORCED to commit fraud - in the case that is being referred to here its quite clear that the mother of the 3 kids is deliberately committing fraud.
Why dont they pay rent out of the partners earnings? Because they have learned how to play the system and defraud the state.
 
RainyDay said:
When Seamus Brennan was Minister for Social & Family Affairs, I heard him state his intention to remove the requirement to be living on your own to be eligible for such benefits, largely because it was unenforceable. Not sure if this has happened or will happen. Come back, Seamus - all is forgiven.
Click to expand...

Just heard Joan Burton's speech today calling on the Minister to implement these promised changes, so I guess they certainly haven't happened yet.
 
RainyDay said:
Just heard Joan Burton's speech today calling on the Minister to implement these promised changes, so I guess they certainly haven't happened yet.
Click to expand...
Not like Bertie to shaft one of his few effective ministers…

One of my employees had a flat in Ballymun for years, or at least his “partner2 and their three children did). They now have a house. They got a hand out from the state (that’s you and me people) to furnish it. Then they got a hand out from St. Vincent DePaul.
This year he will earn €44’000. His wife works part time and they have a side line selling pornographic DVD’s. They are in no way exceptional.

A woman on RTE radio was moaning about lack of free childcare. She said something along the lines of, “what they expect me to do, I mean my child needs to minded in the afternoon”. Well this might come as news to her but she’s a grown-up and is responsible for her own life. Why do so many people in this country still think that they are owed a living?
 
RainyDay said:
When Seamus Brennan was Minister for Social & Family Affairs, I heard him state his intention to remove the requirement to be living on your own to be eligible for such benefits, largely because it was unenforceable. Not sure if this has happened or will happen. Come back, Seamus - all is forgiven.
Click to expand...


He also mentioned, at the same time as he was talking about doing away with the co-habitation rule, that he would introduce conditions that a lone parent would have to go to work/training/education when the child reached 6 years of age in order to keep the payment. You still want him back?
 
Last edited:
Welfarite said:
He also mentioned, at the same time as he was talking about doing away with the co-habitation rule, that he would introduce conditions that a lone parent would have to go to work/training/education when the child reached 6 years of age in order to keep the payment. You still want him back?
Click to expand...

Why shouldnt a lone parent go into work/training/education when their child is 6 years of age and in school all day?
 
truthseeker said:
Why shouldnt a lone parent go into work/training/education when their child is 6 years of age and in school all day?
Click to expand...
Fascist! Nazi! Neo-Con Capitalist pig!
How dare you suggest that people should be self-sufficient and imply that the welfare system should be used to help them reach that goal and not as a free income for life! :rolleyes:
 
Purple said:
Fascist! Nazi! Neo-Con Capitalist pig!
How dare you suggest that people should be self-sufficient and imply that the welfare system should be used to help them reach that goal and not as a free income for life! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Well said! ;) They're introducing it in the UK from October 2008 - about time too!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top