CALLS FOR the restoration of the Christmas bonus for welfare recipients were made at a conference on unemployment yesterday. The annual conference of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) also heard demands that welfare rates should not be cut in the next budget.
Ann Fergus, chairwoman of the organisation, said it was “unfair and unjust” to suggest the unemployed should have their welfare rates cut. “How dare anyone even suggest it. Have they ever tried living on €200 a week?”
Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin told delegates if sufficient savings were made this year the first thing she would seek to restore would be the Christmas bonus.
Asked about possible cuts in welfare rates, she said she could not guarantee current rates would be maintained. She had asked the Department of Finance to sanction the appointment of 300 new staff to process claims for unemployment assistance. These new appointments would be in addition to 260 extra welfare officers appointed in the last few months.
INOU co-ordinator John Stewart said waiting times for payment of job-seekers allowance and benefit were up to 16 weeks in Edenderry, Co Offaly; 15 weeks in Clonakilty, Co Cork; 14.5 weeks in Tuam, Co Galway; and 13 weeks in Boyle, Co Roscommon.
Some delegates said non-Irish claimants for unemployment assistance were being asked to produce proof they had no assets in their home country and no social welfare payment from another country. “So the non-Irish are being told to wait longer for their job-seeker allowance.”
