Today the Government made the biggest cut yet to the only
payment to our children - child benefit, after slamming Fianna Fail for making
cuts when in opposition. Yet when they walked across the Dail how quickly
they forgot! Now we have broken promises and another year of harsh austerity
where many will now fall through the ice and drown in the mounting debts that
engulf them.
Children
will go hungry and cold, but apparently this is not the Government’s problem,
they do not seem to care. Today they have hit struggling families again;
they claimed they made it fair, they claimed that they are protecting the
vulnerable. They lied.
"We are
struggling to see where children have been protected," says Pacub
Spokesperson Niamh Ui Cheallaigh. "Do cuts to child benefit,
increases in PRSI, cuts to the back to school allowance, cuts to medical card,
the new property tax, the increase of student fees, the taxing of maternity
benefit, do they protect children? We are being hit again from all angles,
where will it end!!
"This
Government has absolutely no measure of how bad things are on the ground. They
are living in a fantasy world. This budget is anti-family and
anti-child. So much for Labour promises to protect child benefit from any
more cuts. We have been left reeling and struggling to see how we will make
ends meet next year.
"We
will now see our economy shrink further, we will see more families fall into
poverty, more families lose their homes, more unable to keep working, more
unable to provide the basics, food and heat. Do our elected TD’s
care? It seems not!!
"This
is the worst budget yet for families and children. Children have been
savagely attacked again, and the Government chose to protect the wealthy and
target children again. They should hang their heads in shame."
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