Is anyone else cheesed off with how much people get paid on social welfare

D

deargas

Registered User
Messages
18
One of the few things that went up in the last budget was the Social Welfare payment, to around EUR 209 per week.

Does someone really need EUR 209 per week to survive.

A friend of mine is getting rent allowance, lives in a 1 bed apartment in Letterkenny.

He has to pay an additional EUR 35 out of his social welfare to cover the shortfall in rent allowance.

I asked him candidly over the Christmas period, if you didn't smoke or drink for the week, how much would it cost you to live.

He said around EUR75.

So that's an extra EUR 100 he's got to 'enjoy himself' with every week.

Surely social welfare should be means or locally assessed. i.e. the cost of living in Dublin would be much higher than in the wilds of Donegal, or families with additional mouths to feed etc.

Also, the person just made unemployed with a hefty mortgage to pay, yes I accept the case for needing to pay a higher amount here too.

But my original question was this. Do you pay too much in Social Welfare payments.

Consider that social welfare in England at the moment is around EUR70 per week.

If you feel like replying, I'd appreciate it if you could say whether you are receiving Social Welfare payments or not.
 
Agree completely..Some people I know, living at home, so no mortatage, able to go on 1 or 2 holidays a year(budget holidays to be fair but still a week in the sun) , have a night out every weekend..Were offered jobs during the boom period and turned them down..this is fact and they werent bad jobs,doing deliveries etc....Too much incentive there to stay on it in my opinion...I am talking about people on the dole,not people who have been paying PRSI and been made redundant,in this case I think they should be receiving a greater amout to help them through.
Also too much of a convergence of 'income' between people on minimum wage and social welfare(including all other benefits)
I am currently in full time employment.

T
 
its all very well but if he becomes sick - needs private tests because our public services are poor then it won't go too far. maybe it is too much, but i honestly wouldn'nt swop places with anyone on unemployment assistance.
something should be done to reduce the lenght of time people can avail of assistance instead of cutting the allowance IMO.
 
I'm not receiving it, but only became aware of the figure when I looked it up late last year when I feared redundancy was on the cards and the short answer from me is: No, I don't think its too much, it frightens me to think that I may have to live on that sometime in the near future if the worse comes to the worst.
 
I look at in terms of disposable income. Someone in receipt of rent allowance, ESB credits, phone credits, tv license paid, medical card and then the welfare payment, against someone out working earning an average wage but having to pay mortgage on a modest house, maybe car loan on a modest car to get them to and from work if inadequate public transport available. sometimes the former have more disposable income and this is where I think things are unfair.
I work full time.
 
Yes 204 euro per week is a lot but its actually a great fallback to have if you loose your job. I know people who have lost their jobs and are finding it very very hard to get a new job, the 204 per week is of a great help.

The only problem I have is with people who are lazy and dont want to find a job and just live off the dole and other supplements.

If you loose your job you will be more than grateful for the 204 per week.
 
niceoneted said:
I look at in terms of disposable income. Someone in receipt of rent allowance, ESB credits, phone credits, tv license paid, medical card and then the welfare payment, against someone out working earning an average wage but having to pay mortgage on a modest house, maybe car loan on a modest car to get them to and from work if inadequate public transport available. sometimes the former have more disposable income and this is where I think things are unfair.
I work full time.
Click to expand...

Just to point out that items such as ESB credits, phone credits and TV licence are generally only available to pensioners, and some other specific groups (unemployed not being one of them).
 
I rent houses to sw tenants and find that they can afford to pay rent allowance supplement,living expences,(this is the killer bit)run a car!!and a mobile phone!!and a few pints at the weekend, all out of their dole payments,and whats more the country is full of them.
 
Ok,

I'm own my own business, and as a proprietary director, if I go out of business, I get no jobseekers benefit, though I pay taxes, and prsi, so that's great.

to the person who said, yea it's great to fall back on if you're out of work. where do you think the money comes from? with more and more people being out of work, there is an ever increasing burden on those paying taxes.

I have spent the last 5 years working, paying a hefty mortgage, putting kids through school etc. If I go out of work, the dole won't even cover the interest on my mortgage.


My point is; in this tech savvy world, with civil servants facing the possibility of being made redundant, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a fine toothed comb approach to assessing those receiving jobseekers allowance to see just how much they need to survive.

I don't want a witch hunt type approach, if you need cash to pay the bills, then I think there should be a case for it, but if you're a layabout like my friend, yes he's dog lazy, thinks you can't get a job unless you're Polish. (-aside, that doesn't look right, Polish as in people from Poland, not the stuff to shine shoes).

anyway, if you're a layabout, not even interested in work, then why should you have the extra EUR100 per week to get drunk and smoke your way into the hospitals and health system that my taxes contribut to?
 
Surely that's just your friends experience though. I know people on the dole who certainly don't have an extra €100 per week spending money to go on the beer with. The administrative cost of trying to find out how much each individual needs to live on and pay them that would probably cost more than it saves. Maybe €200 is too much and the same argument can probably be made about the minimum wage but I certainly hope I don't have to try living off that amount for any significant length of time.
 
Social welfare system is a complete joke by international standards. It is encourages laziness & apathy towards making any attempt to get back into the work force, and in many ways makes it more economically sensible to stay unemployed- which is crazy but true.

The social welfare system also has so many "arms & legs" such as unmarried mothers allowances, back to work schemes, disability payments etc etc it is almost impossible to establish where the biggest leakage is. When everyone is running down the health service in Ireland, how many have actually given a thought to the fact that the social welfare spend in the budget is normally greater than or equal to the amount of money spent on health? The figures in the last budget are approx. €19bn (yes thats billion!!) is the cost of social welfare.

One example of craziness is my sister in law-

unmarried mother so gets approx. €200+ per week, health board pay her rent in a new (built in 2006 3 bed semi) of €900 per month, she & her child have a medical card plus all the other free social welfare benefits. She works long hours at weekends (for cash!!!!) in a nite club/restauarant receiving €275, her boyfriend lives with her (technically not supposed to) and he earns €575 nett per week. Here are the raw figures for that house hold:

Min €1,050 per week net income with ZERO rent or mortgage plus free medical card & benefits- why in God's name would these people ever get married or come off social welfare. How many "working" house holds have over €1000 per week nett after all rent or mortgage payments?

The system is crazy & is being exploited left right & centre- a reform of the social welfare system could reap benefits of surely more than €2-3bn. As compared to the UK or all other international systems we encourage fraud & laziness by maintaining the sytem which we currently operate. It is inefficient, open to manipulation & ran by people who couldn't care less (just look at FAS).
 
Yellow Belly said:
Social welfare system is a complete joke by international standards. It is encourages laziness & apathy towards making any attempt to get back into the work force, and in many ways makes it more economically sensible to stay unemployed- which is crazy but true.

The social welfare system also has so many "arms & legs" such as unmarried mothers allowances, back to work schemes, disability payments etc etc it is almost impossible to establish where the biggest leakage is. When everyone is running down the health service in Ireland, how many have actually given a thought to the fact that the social welfare spend in the budget is normally greater than or equal to the amount of money spent on health? The figures in the last budget are approx. €19bn (yes thats billion!!) is the cost of social welfare.

One example of craziness is my sister in law-

unmarried mother so gets approx. €200+ per week, health board pay her rent in a new (built in 2006 3 bed semi) of €900 per month, she & her child have a medical card plus all the other free social welfare benefits. She works long hours at weekends (for cash!!!!) in a nite club/restauarant receiving €275, her boyfriend lives with her (technically not supposed to) and he earns €575 nett per week. Here are the raw figures for that house hold:

Min €1,050 per week net income with ZERO rent or mortgage plus free medical card & benefits- why in God's name would these people ever get married or come off social welfare. How many "working" house holds have over €1000 per week nett after all rent or mortgage payments?

The system is crazy & is being exploited left right & centre- a reform of the social welfare system could reap benefits of surely more than €2-3bn. As compared to the UK or all other international systems we encourage fraud & laziness by maintaining the sytem which we currently operate. It is inefficient, open to manipulation & ran by people who couldn't care less (just look at FAS).
Click to expand...

This is about abuse of the system not about whether or not 204euro a week is too much. If they are committing fraud then report them
 
How many more are like them? How many people drawing the €204 have REALLY tried to get a job? What incentive is there for these people to get work?

I would hazard a quess that close on 66% of receipients of social welfare commit fraud in one way or another-
Are all disability allowance receivers really that disabled?
How many unemployed are no doing casual work (even if it just drug dealing!!!) on the side?
How many have actually tried to get a job (which is one of the conditions of receiving payments)?
How many have applied for a new kitchen appliance to their local health board & then sold it down the pub?

The whole system is rotten & needs to be reformed immediately.

Don't get me wrong- I am all for looking after the "weakest in society" but when it has reached the stage that we are at then something needs to be done. Why is there not an inspector for every 2,000 people on the dole? If he called to 5 people a day he would have looked in all his "crew" within 18 months? Surely his salary would justify itself quite quickly in terms of money saved from fraud.

The working man runs the risk of the Revenue Commissioner- who does the social welfare man have to account to?
 
People go to prison for social welfare fraud. How many bankers do you think will see the inside of a cell after the dust settles on this one?
 
Yellow Belly said:
How many more are like them? How many people drawing the €204 have REALLY tried to get a job? What incentive is there for these people to get work?

I would hazard a quess that close on 66% of receipients of social welfare commit fraud in one way or another-
Are all disability allowance receivers really that disabled?
How many unemployed are no doing casual work (even if it just drug dealing!!!) on the side?
How many have actually tried to get a job (which is one of the conditions of receiving payments)?
How many have applied for a new kitchen appliance to their local health board & then sold it down the pub?

The whole system is rotten & needs to be reformed immediately.

Don't get me wrong- I am all for looking after the "weakest in society" but when it has reached the stage that we are at then something needs to be done. Why is there not an inspector for every 2,000 people on the dole? If he called to 5 people a day he would have looked in all his "crew" within 18 months? Surely his salary would justify itself quite quickly in terms of money saved from fraud.

The working man runs the risk of the Revenue Commissioner- who does the social welfare man have to account to?
Click to expand...

Social welfare investigators for start. How can you just pluck a figure of 66% out of your head to justify some pre-conception that you have of people on social welfare based on the experiences of your sister in law that another poster quiet rightly asks why haven't you informed social welfare about her if you want to stop the system being abused.
 
How many bankers do you think committed fraud then? I only know of one who didn't follow good corporate governance- there is no mention of fraud in his actions other than a public assumptions of dishonesty.

I think you will find that he actually broke no law- even though I do agree that he actions were disgraceful.

Too much banker & developer bashing at moment- where did all the tax euro come from for the last 10 years? You should be sending all these people get well soon cards as they will have to be on top form to keep the tax receipts up for the next few years.

Concentrate on the real "drain" on our economy- social welfare & the civil service! Have a good bash there before you move on to people who actually TRIED to achieve something!
 
deargas said:
yea, because that's what he's going to do. He's going to report his Sister-in-law
Click to expand...

Why not? She has got a boyfriend which I presume isn't his brother so she is not even related to him anymore. And you can't come on here moaning about people on social welfare if you are not going to take steps to help fix the problem.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top