Budget result: Bankers 1, Children 0

PACUB's press release condemns a Budget that targets children and benefits bankers

Children, the one group in Irish society that did not party, did not borrow recklessly, did not spend stupidly are being targeted to bear the brunt of the cuts in this cruel Budget which savagely targets children and their families. PACUB, the support group for families, condemns a Budget that is taking an axe to child benefit, tax credits and other essential supports for families and also increasing taxes and so many charges that they cannot avoid.

“Many parents will try to protect their children by not telling them about this Budget and its effect on them,” says PACUB spokeswoman Niamh Kelly. “The children will not know about the presents they didn't receive, the extra help in school they needed, the healthy food they did not eat, the heating they did not enjoy. They will accept their lives as they live them, but they will be suffering, they will be missing out on opportunities that would enrich their lives and enhance their futures.

“These cuts will mean more children living in poverty, a backward move after all the progress in recent years.  PACUB is also very disappointed that families with children on Social Welfare will not receive a compensatory increase in the qualified child allowance as they did last year.  And what are the plans for 2012? It’s hard to believe that there will be even more cuts.  We’re very afraid child benefit go the same way as the early childcare supplement : cut, cut, gone!

“Children and their families are being hit from every angle, with social welfare cuts, cuts in education and health services, increases in charges and taxes.  They are the sector of society being most unfairly targeted, but they will be left picking up the pieces.

“Saddest of all will be the casualties, the families who have to leave their homes - to be rehoused at more cost to the State, the families that will break up, with all the trauma that causes to children, the suicides, the emigrations. Others will struggle on, but without hope. There is no vision in the Budget of a better and fairer Ireland at the end of the four year programme. Just pain.”

Child Benefit RIP

PACUB says proposed abolition of child benefit is 'frightening'

PACUB says the proposed abolition of child benefit in the National Recovery Plan published today November 24th, and its replacement by a new two-tier child income support scheme is ‘frightening’. Without any details of the new payments, parents are worried that the base rate of child income support for all but the poorest families could be quite low.

“We have been living in fear for the past year, first we are told that we have turned a corner, but now it is nothing but doom and despair,” says PACUB spokeswoman Niamh Kelly. “Why can our Government not be straight with us, and tell us exactly what is happening with child benefit? We don't have the luxury of a bailout - I have four children and a fifth on the way, how am I going to pay for doctor's fees, nappies, prescriptions, shoes, food, school books? What do I tell my children this year for Christmas? I urge the Government to come out and at least be straight with Irish families.”

Also  published today, the Government’s own review* appears to support the contribution of the universal child benefit payment to children’s welfare, accepting that “child poverty did fall over the period of the review particularly at times when the level of (largely) universal support was increased.  Child income support spending clearly contributed to the reduction in child poverty over the period of the review.”  So why abolish it?

*A Policy and Value for Money Review of Child Income Support
and Associated Spending Programmes

This press release was issued on November 24th

Let the children speak

PACUB launches a Christmas Wish Campaign for children

A Christmas Wish Campaign for children is being launched by PACUB today, Tuesday 9th November 2010. Children are being encouraged to make or buy a Christmas card before November 22nd and write a message in it for An Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD. PACUB will organise delivery of the cards in the run-up to the Budget.

The campaign aims to give a voice to all the children who are affected by the current recession and the opportunity to express in the card what they would wish from the Government this Christmas:

“We know that children are worried from the many sad stories that have been pouring into PACUB,” says spokeswoman Jane Mooney. “Their activities are being cut, their clothes are getting too small and they wonder will Santa actually visit. They notice when the house is cold, when their mother is always crying, when the car is no longer parked outside, when their older brother leaves for a job in Canada.

“They see these things, but who is listening to our children? It's their future that is being decided by the cold calculations of the bond market. And now the only payment that succours our children is under threat again. We're pleading with this Government, do not target our children: Leave child benefit alone.”

To take part in the Christmas Wish Campaign, just send a bought or made Christmas card with your child's wishes for this Christmas to: Carol Haslam, c/o Jenna's Flowers, Main Street, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15. Please post them as close to Monday 22nd November as possible to give time for them to be presented. Details of the children's wishes can be posted on the PACUB Facebook page, and a selection will be published on the blog at pacub.blogspot.com.

This press release from PACUB was issued today, Tuesday 9th November.

Selling the furniture to pay the bills

This family are now selling their furniture to pay bills and put food on the table, and still they can't make ends meet:

I am a mum of three children age 9, 5 and 7 months.  Since I had my 3rd child I have been very unwell, suffering from post natal depression and have had a nervous breakdown.  Not the best start really.  I have not been able to return to work due to my illness, and currently rely on illness benefit and my child benefit to feed my family and pay my bills.  My husband's contract ended in May and he was lucky enough to secure a new PAYE role but on a lot less salary than as a contractor.  We have made cuts and cuts on our outgoings, cancelled our health insurance, cancelled everything, and are living on borrowed time. Every time the phone rings I dread to answer it as it’s yet another blocked number chasing us for money we just do not have.  We have a huge mortgage and loans to pay back and we are getting nowhere.  We have gone on interest only with the mortgage for 6 months but this will run out shortly because my husband’s salary holds him on the higher tax rate (he isn't earning that much more than the lower band).  I fear I will lose my child benefit altogether and that means we won’t eat as there is nothing left.  I constantly have to plan ahead on whether I can use my car as it might not have petrol in it and no money to put any in.

My children are suffering as I have had to stop after school activities, can't afford them, have not been able to buy them new clothes this year, shoes etc so they are in last year’s, which are starting to look very small.  My children ask me have we no money a lot, and I just don’t know what to tell them. We have sold everything we can, good jewellery, baby equipment not used, anything that will sell is sold to help pay off bills but it still isn’t enough. I have recently started selling furniture we can manage without, but I am getting very little for it.  We are just running out of ideas to get cash. We have reduced all our payments with loans we hold, but we can barely pay the reduced amounts.  Some financial houses won't even allow us reduce as they said we have nothing left to even make a payment so we are just defaulting on these.  My husband recently had a bank threaten legal proceedings on the outstanding balance of a loan and we may go to court and tell the Judge we have nothing.

My other issue is we haven’t money to pay road tax due on my husband’s car so he is soon going to get stopped and done for this but we just don’t know what to do.  He is working so hard to keep his new job and I’m just falling apart at home. If they cut child benefit we are just ruined, we will have to consider leaving the country and ditching our loans which means we will never be able to come back to our home country.

Hope this isn’t too scarey but it’s my story and I am currently in tears typing it.  How did everything get so bad and why have we ruined our children’s future here?

When the recession takes it all away

Life was good for one mother from Cork .... until the recession. This is her story:

In 2007 I fell pregnant with my daughter, who was born in April 2008. I worked for a solicitor, and my husband worked for a global computer company, so we both brought in enough money to be comfortable. 

I was due to return to work from Maternity Leave in October 2008, right when the recession hit Ireland.  I was told that there was no job for me, as there were cut backs, I have been unemployed ever since, I've applied for jobs but no joy. 

My son was born last November, and we thought that as I was out of work it would make sense to have our children now, rather than put our family on hold because of the recession. My husband was in full time employment and with the child benefit every month, we made it work. My child benefit usually buys clothes for the kids every 3 months as they grow so fast, my son has been ill and his medication is expensive.  Also I was diagnosed with Post Natal depression, so the child benefit contributes to this as well as heating oil for the house. My husband and I could live without the heating, but with a baby and a toddler it just isn't an option. 

Sadly my husband lost his job a couple of weeks ago so things are looking pretty grim now, the only hope we had for christmas was the child benefit, if it reduced we will be very badly affected, and I know a lot of other families will be even harder hit than us.

Europe needs babies...

...so why would Ireland remove child benefit from larger families?

Europe needs babies is the message from the European Parliament which voted in favour of extending both maternity and paternity leave  this week.  But here it was reported that child benefit could be cut for third and subsequent children in the December Budget, sending a wave of panic through larger families. PACUB is supporting these families in opposing any further cuts to child benefit for any group.

PACUB spokeswoman Niamh Kelly commented: “Parents are living in fear and dread of what's ahead. They are very concerned and scared, and many don't know how they will survive this winter and indeed the next 4 years.

“Why are we here again? There are other ways to make the cuts that have been suggested without targeting our most valuable asset: our children. Only last year an OECD report heavily criticised our lack of investment in our young. They say we need to do more, and the increases in child benefit a few years ago is just the first step.

“Yet now we read that cuts are yet again planned, with bigger families being unfairly targeted. This completely contradicts the rationale for child benefit: When it was first introduced in 1946 by Sean Lemass it was to help bigger families with 3 or more children. It was expanded as a way for the country to invest in the next generation and the future of Ireland.

“Parents will feel discriminated against and penalised for having more than two children, this latest idea does not take into account family background or expenses. Regardless of how many children they have, many families now feel that they are on a cliff edge struggling to hang on. Their fingers are slipping and come January 2011 many will fall if the government continues on its path to cut child benefit.”

PACUB believes that families are being expected - again - to take the biggest hit in the proposed austerity measures. Families live in bigger houses, use more water, send their children to school, and visit doctors and hospitals more often. These are all areas that the Government is threatening to target! And they want our child benefit as well. Some commentators have described the Government's contribution of €150 a month to the cost of raising a child as 'a lot'. Perhaps these are these the same commentators that told us that the total cost of raising a child to 18 in Ireland is up to €300,000 - or €1,390 a month.

There are plenty of alternatives to cutting child benefit, starting at the top with Dail salaries and expenses, followed by the introduction of a fairer tax system, removal of tax reliefs apart from mortgage tax relief and the abolition of unnecessary quangos. Those changes would make a big difference.

This press release was issued today

Another family dreading Christmas

Christmas should be one of the best days of the year for families.  Instead, while children are getting excited, their parents are desperately wondering what the December Budget will do to their fragile finances, and where they will find the money to make Christmas special this year.  


Another mother tells her story:

We are one of those middle income families with 'irresponsible consumer debt' as they're now calling it. We're struggling to pay a car loan that we took out before the recession as a necessary part of rural living with no public transport. The car was needed as my husband drives a three hour round trip to work to an area that has no bus or rail service. The cuts and levies that have already been imposed are already leaving us struggling. The child benefit is used in our home for grocery shopping. The children already wear hand me down clothes and we rarely go out, either as a couple or as a family. Neither my husband or myself smoke and we've cut back on pretty much everything we can at this stage. The only things left to give up are our bin collection and the TV. We have no savings and the thought of Christmas leaves me with a feeling of dread.

I know we're lucky in that my husband is still employed but the constant worry is for how long. We have no family here and my husband works irregular shifts so even if part time work for me was an option, there aren't any jobs out there for me to do.

I wonder if the government truly knows how bad it is for many of us?

Middle income families need child benefit too

As explained in a letter to Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív T.D. by a Cavan mother of four:

Dear Sir,

I wanted to contact you directly, because at this time I am extremely 
worried and annoyed at the prospect of the impending budget and what 
that might do to my child benefit.

I and my husband are law abiding tax paying citizens, we have never 
claimed for anything that we were not entitled too. It seems our only 
crime is having children, which it is clear that this government does 
not value. The greatest crime of all perhaps is that 3 of my 4 children 
are triplets. Whilst I know that we receive an enhanced payment for our 
children (currently €1198 per month) I would implore you that this money 
is not used to pay for a lavish lifestyle or shoes and handbags. Every 
cent of that money is used to pay for schooling (including the non 
voluntary contributions!) feeding and clothing, I would also used this 
money to pay bills. At the end of each month I don't have money left 
over, indeed I shop in Lidl to make my euro stretch as far as it can. If 
there is €10 in our account at the end of the month I am lucky.

My husband is a "middle income worker" currently on middle 50'sK and 
the only income coming into the house. We do not qualify for medical 
cards. My children cannot see the dentist, I simply do not have the 
money per child to go and I am unable to go either and I seriously need 
to! I dread it if we need to go to the doctor, how or where will I find 
€45 plus prescription money, that's half of a week's grocery shopping. We 
have an averaged sized house and whilst we carry a mortgage we are making 
those payments.

However, if you slash our benefit, and introduce higher taxes or 
property and water charges, I simply do not know how we will make ends 
meet. Whilst I can appreciate that perhaps that sounds dramatic, it is 
the truth and Christmas will be a very poor affair in this house.

Next year we have communion for our triplets, how will I afford even the 
dresses which I know they would like? Forget holidays there won't be 
any. Saving money for a rainy day...there isn't any.

My question then is this, how do you expect us to cope? A whole swathe 
of middle class people have simply become the working poor, and if you 
as a government constantly tax and take money from us, just how do you 
expect to stimulate the spending and thus get us out of a downward spiral?

I know I am not alone, there are families all over Ireland like mine, 
fearful of the budget, fearful of whether they will be able to continue 
to live in their homes, be able to make ends meet.

Finally I am angry that this country's wealth has been squandered on the 
banks. I am livid that this government rather than look to streamline the 
quangos, committees and inefficient running of state departments, which 
are rich for being targeted as a first line of spending cut. The 
government would rather seek to take from the families of Ireland. Thus 
perpetuating the story that cronyism is alive and well in Ireland. I 
have lost my respect for this government and my faith in the country. 
What have my children got to look forward too? Certainly not an 
opportunity rich future.

Sincerely,

Sarah

Four children in a freezing cold house

Lynda, a lone parent of four from Wexford, tells it like it is:

I've just sent this letter to all TD's, good to get it off my chest. But I'm sure they wont take a blind bit of notice!

**I hope as you all sit there discussing cuts in child benefit in your nice warm offices that you think of my four children sitting in a freezing cold house as already with last years cuts and the rise in fuel prices, I cannot afford to buy any oil or coal to heat the house. I'm just about managing to keep my car (which is a necessity not a luxury) on the road.

I rely on my child benefit to get my children what they need for school & clothing, pay for their study, school bus & the 1 extra curricular activity each that they do.  I have to say no if they ask to do anymore, as any other money I have just pays for food & keeps a roof over our heads.  I don't drink, smoke or socialise, if I have any cash at all to spare I will try once a month to let the kids go into town with their friends & give them some spending money.

As you can see I am struggling, like a lot of other people in this country. You want to bring in water rates too, as well as cut child benefit, this will absolutely push me & many others over the edge financially, & I will be lucky to be able to put food on the table.

Child Benefit is our life line

Hello and welcome to the PACUB blog.  We're going to post up press releases, updates, information and anything else we can think of here, as we don't have a website this year.

So here's our first press release, issued on Thursday 14th October:

 'Child Benefit is our life line' say worried families

Worried families from all over Ireland are appalled at Government suggestions that child benefit will be cut again in this year’s Budget.  They are continuing to join the PACUB (Protest Against Child Unfriendly Budget) Facebook Group to oppose any change to child benefit.

During 2010 the situation for many families has worsened and even more are depending on child benefit to pay for basics like food and bills, to ensure that their children are properly nourished and live in homes that are warm and dry. Unlike the UK, Irish parents have many additional expenses that are not supplemented by the government such as school books, 'voluntary' school contributions, doctors bills, prescriptions and hospital fees. For many families who have absorbed job losses, loss of pay coupled with negative equity - child benefit has become a life line.

PACUB spokeswoman Niamh Kelly says:  “We oppose any cuts to child benefit as it is the only payment made to families in this country that recognises the extra cost of raising the next generation of tax payers.   More cuts will cause huge hardship for all families from all backgrounds.  We know that many families are finding it hard to pay for heating and electricity, so even a small cut and many more households will be facing into the winter with no heat or light.  Children are the innocent ones who will suffer the most from any reduction in child benefit.

“We do not accept the constant comparisons with child benefit in the UK as families there enjoy truly free education and health care as well as tax credits and lower prices.  A universal child benefit payment is relatively cheap and easy to administer and is fair to all children.  To those who say that child benefit should be taken away from rich families: we say just tax them more.  It’s easier, cheaper and more efficient.”

Protest by contacting TDs, Senators and MEPs.  This can be easily done using the website contact.ie.

About PACUB


PACUB  was established in April 2009 following the Supplementary Budget.  The Group represents families who were disproportionately targeted by the measures announced then and in the next budget.  More than 16,000 people signed on-line petitions and paper petitions, while hundreds posted protest letters to politicians and the media, or sent unused nappies to the Taoiseach to symbolise the huge cost of raising children in rip-off Ireland.  Angry mothers appeared on radio, TV and in the papers in order to send a clear message to the Government - leave child benefit alone.  They didn’t listen.


More information on PACUB on Facebook (search PACUB) or on the PACUB blog. Contact Niamh (085 782 6118), Sarah (086 3864871), Candi (085 1289 342) or Carol  (087 675 3734) or on email via protest4childbenefit@gmail.com