This article is from page 17 of the 2009-12-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
LOW incomes families have been singled out by the Government and targeted for extra harsh treatment be- cause they don’t have a coherent voice within Irish society.
That is the opinion of Treasa Dovan- dor, founder of the Protest Against a Child Unfriendly Budget (PACUB) organisation, who believes _ that families have borne the brunt of last week’s budget.
The group, which gathered more than 16,000 signatures for a petition against the budget, feels that the deci- sion revealed last week will create a new poor in Ireland.
“We have had feedback from a lot of families who feel that on top of the loss of the Early Childcare Sup- plement and the 10 per cent cut, they have suffered a 50 per cent cut in the Government support for families. We don’t feel that any sector within so- ciety has been hit as hard. No one is
there to speak up for families and in particular low income families, there isn’t really a voice for people like us and that is why we set up this organi- sation in the first place,” said
“This budget mainly hit middle and low income families and will create a new poor in Ireland. It is a blunt instrument and something like a 10 per cent cut can send people spiraling below the poverty line and they won’t be caught.
“We are an easy target. Parents have
childcare issues and we have work is- sues. It is not easy for us to down tools and head off marching to Dublin like the pensioners did. For us parents who are carrying the shoulder of much of the cut, we seem to have no-one fight- ing our corner except for PACUB,”’ she continued.
“T think that maybe families have been beaten down and conditioned to accept cuts for the benefit of the coun- try. There is very little fight left in families. We have already taken our
hit – we have already paid our share. The public sector have seen levies and now a loss of pay and people in the private sector have seen large reduc- tions in pay and many have lost their jobs – myself included.
‘““We have paid more than our share for this mess that we had nothing to do with creating. Child poverty is now a massive concern in this country. One in seven children are on the poverty line in this country and that is before this cut in child benefit happens.