Budget 2024 is a “one for everyone in the audience” bundle of measures, according to a community worker.
Rita Fagan, project manager at St Michael’s Family Resource Centre in Inchicore, Dublin, has been a community worker for 35 years.
“That addresses all the issues of poverty, drugs, it addresses violence against women, we’re multi-purpose,” she said.
She said there was “a lot of people in the middle” who were struggling to pay their rent in Ireland, but the majority of people whom they help do not have much to live off.
“We work with a lot of people that have no homes, we work with a lot of people who don’t plan from now to next summer. They plan from day to day.
“What they get in social welfare is very limited, so when people talk about great social welfare, you’re talking about living within a particular level. So sometimes you do go without your dinner.
“People shouldn’t have to depend on food banks … people should be allowed to live, people should have a proper living wage, people should have proper means.
“And I’m not talking about luxury, I’m talking about being able to just live.”
She said that the child-related welfare measures – such as a double Child Benefit payment, a Working Family Payment lump sum of €400 and €100 for Qualified Child Increment recipients – would make a difference to those families.
But she said that deeper change was needed to help children in poverty and families in the long term.
“If you say that you care about poor children, you need to support projects that are grassroots and that can actually meet those needs on a daily basis,” she said.
“I’ve been listening there, they’re not really going deeply into addressing the housing issue. It’s the same.
“I can hear the voices saying people on social welfare, they’ll do much better out of it, but in the context of the cost-of-living rises, that just meets the basic needs.
“There’s a year to get through in terms of what those once-off ‘double’ benefits … things are double the price this year.
“Everyone in the audience is getting something out of this budget, which is good, but there are people who really do struggle.”
She said that the three €150 electricity credits should have been more targeted to those on the lowest incomes.
“Instead of giving it to people who don’t need it, it should have been targeted to people who need the most help.
“The media line is that it would be just too much work to do all that, but if they did it once they could do it again and again.
“They are going to get votes, because this is a five-euro-for-everyone budget.”
