Root and branch review needed to rid welfare system of inequities

The extent to which the State can tie itself up in bureaucratic knots was well illustrated this week in reports about the obstacles wealthy parents face if they want to refuse or hand back to the exchequer, on a voluntary basis, the €140-per-child benefit payment. With a Minister for Social Protection under pressure to cut State expenditure on social welfare, plans for a tax or means test on child benefit are being dusted down. Child benefit is a universal welfare payment made to all families in the State, irrespective of income. So the benefit goes equally to those with a family income of €100,000 or €38,000. Minister Joan Burton favours taxing child benefit of those on income over €100,000 a year but this is where the bureaucratic knot presents itself. It could take several years to put the measure into force because the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Social Protection use different computer systems. This explains why we are now about to spend €370 million linking up the Luas in Dublin city centre. It has long been a bone of contention that a sizeable State benefit is handed out to households where it is often not needed, or indeed wanted. There are many well-off parents among the 600,000 recipients who are on good incomes but have no way of opting out of children's allowances, it is claimed. The suggestion now is that a means of handing back the benefit would be devised. Now we are truly getting into the Gordian knot phase. Why not simply withhold the payments from well-off parents? That would be the sensible solution, but we just don't do sense in Ireland. I'm raising all this in the context of the financial burden faced by many parents in getting their children back to school in a few weeks' time. According to the National Consumer Agency (NCA), parents are reporting average back-to-school costs of €487 for a primary school child and €620 for a secondary school child - and almost eight out of 10 parents are more concerned about back-to-school costs this year than last year. That seems natural considering the state of the economy and the looming necessity of taking a further €3 billion+ out of the economy in the forthcoming December budget. In the wake of a survey on back-to-school costs, carried out by Amárach, the NCA urged parents to budget carefully for these costs. The research shows that six out of 10 parents will use their regular income to pay for school expenses this year. However, for those who have not put money aside, the NCA has a back-to-school budget planner to help parents plan ahead and work out how much they can afford to spend on each item. This presupposes that a household will have a decent income in the first place. While the NCA advice is evidence-based, the children's charity Barnardo's points to its own experience that parents are cutting back on food and skipping the payment of bills to ensure their children get what they need in school. Barnardo's CEO Fergus Finlay said: "Each year in Barnardo's School Costs Survey, parents express their frustration at the high cost of sending children to school. This year, however, parents are also showing real fear and concern at how they are going to make sure their children have what they need to get an education. "Many parents are being forced to make very difficult choices and many are getting into debt to pay for uniforms, books and other education expenses. Concrete solutions for tackling the costs associated with sending children to school are long overdue." And so we come back to the question of payment of children's allowances. We all thought we could afford lavish welfare payments during the Celtic Tiger years. We couldn't, and the chickens are now coming home to roost. It is time for a root and branch reform of some of our welfare systems - but in a way which supports vulnerable families.