Media outlets are reporting a new crackdown on the unemployed.  Apparently, the Department of Social Protection intends to introduce new regulations whereby ‘target-dates’ for exiting the Live Register will be set for different categories of unemployed.  If someone remains on the Live Register past that target-date, they may be subject to a new set of interviews [...]

Remember that statement - how during the boom years we all ‘partied’ as a nation? Remember those prescriptions - how we had to cut back our living standards, probably back to 2003; in order to restore competitiveness? Remember how we were told that we were living beyond our means and now we had to purge [...]

Cut people’s dole to reduce unemployment - did the people who write these OECD policy prescriptions learn their craft at Krusty’s Clown College? Of course, we’ve run into some curious analysis from the OECD before - especially their argument that Ireland’s housing boom was ok, it was just a product of demographic [...]

Yes, the Government has taken a sledge-hammer to the living standards of low and average income earners. But sometimes it’s the little things that expose the venality of policy - the unannounced, below-the-radar, buried-in-a-table-on-page-34-of-an-annex little things.
Last year, when the Government was cutting both social welfare rates and Child Benefit, they increased [...]

Government lies and myths cloud attacks on social welfare
Tune into Pat Kenny, Live at 5, or any other formulaic RTÉ current affairs programme these days and chances are you’ll come across a panel of ‘experts’ debating the social welfare dilemma. It’s no coincidence that, two years into a recession, with unemployment and a deficit still [...]

Life can sometimes be like an American country and western song:
‘My girl friend left me / my dawg bit me in the leg / my mamma joined the army / and my sister is in jail . . . but with the Lord’s help, I’ll carry on.’
Even the most collective minded of us accept [...]

Nearly half of the population would struggle to pay an unexpected bill of €1,000 in the next twelve months, according to a new Eurobarometer study. Forty-five per cent of Irish respondents to the Europe-wide survey indicated that there is a high or moderate risk that they would be unable to cope with such an unexpected [...]

The European Anti Poverty Network (EAPN) Ireland) recently published a factsheet for members on ‘Social Welfare: How Ireland Compares in Europe, which challenges some of the myths and misinformation on social protection spending in Ireland. In this article, Niamh O’Grady, Research Assistant, challenges the view that Ireland’s social welfare and protection levels are among the [...]

There are a number of things that have been brought to my attention recently, so to cover everything I’m going to give each of them a short mention.
No To NAMA
Tomorrow, the 12th of September there is a demonstration being organised to protest against the implementation of NAMA.
From the No to Nama facebook page:
“The voice of [...]

The Government now has its bookends. On the expenditure side, the McCarthy Report; on the taxation side, the Commission Report. Now we can stack the economy between the two and . . . squeeze. The only problem is that one of the bookends may not be so reliable. Indeed, it may fall off the bookshelf. [...]