Who, I wonder, is in charge of welfare here? Is it Lord Maurice Morrow? Stephen Farry? I attended a conference a couple of days ago, sponsored by the Participation and Practice of Rights people (formerly fronted by the late Inez McCormack, now by Dessie Donnelly). I came away from it with troubling questions and assertions f itching in my brain.
- Are the unemployed here being treated fairly? Well, between October 2014 and October 2015, 21, 386 unemployed people had financial sanctions carried out against them. In some cases this arose from being fifteen minutes late for appointments, in others for attending family funerals. People who are unwell have been told to start looking for a job because the decision-makers don’t look at their medical evidence.
- In 2013, 39% of people surveyed by R2W had their benefit stopped because of a sanction. In 2014 it was 50% and in 2015 59%.
- Many of those penalized said they were denied the right of appeal. In 2015 64% said so. In 2014 77% said so. In 2015 83% said so.
Here’s what Seán Brady, a development worker with PPR, said at the conference:
“The welfare system is broken. Big companies are being paid £millions in public money to declare sick people fit and punish people on back to work schemes, which aren’t working. Their actions lead to £millions being taken out of communities. Our local Political Parties and the Ministers in DEL and DSD can’t wash their hands and blame Westminster. This isn’t about Westminster. Stormont has the power to act now to adopt ‘The Peoples Proposals’ locally to protect the most vulnerable.”
The obvious question presents itself: if these injustices are happening to people who are defenceless, and if those who are implementing these injustices are our elected Stormont representatives, shouldn’t the Ministers responsible (No, Virginia – the buck stops with the Ministers, not with the clerks and pen-pushers ) be confronted and answers/changes demanded? There’s absolutely no point in declaring our representatives useless if we don’t pressure them into doing what they’re paid to do: in this case run departments which don’t target the weak.
Perfect answer in respect of Ministers are responsible. Regardless of which party you vote for it is you who elect them. I vote Sinn Fein and am not shy of getting answers if in my opinion they are,in my eyes wrong.
wonder what james connolly would make of those implementing the cuts on the defenceless.
I was on benefits, Job Seekers Allowance, for a few years, from 2010-12. I use to work in a Bar in Belfast City Centre until it went bust in late 2009 due to the credit crunch and the general mayhem in the economy at that time.
I remember our Neill (where did he go??…) tried to say once that people on welfare have it easy, that they just sit there and get paid money while everyone else has to work their fingers to the bone. That’s the same old tory propaganda and lies, and I know that for a fact because I lived through being on benefits and know what its like and how the system works.
Luckily for me when I first went to sign on I was told how the system works by people who worked in it. I also know people who were on benefits long enough who knew the system, the forms, the procedures, etc better than the staff at the benefits office themselves.
Basically if your on JSA you get roughly £90-£100 a fortnight. Not £900-£1000 as Neill would have you believe. Its a pittance and is gone within a few days after you pay for food, electric, etc and other essentials. Thankfully my family, especially my mother, was on hand to help me whenever I needed it but its not the point, its embarrassing being in that position in the first place. I applied and applied for jobs but the vast majority of jobs available then were low paying, many were so low paying that I was actually BETTER OFF on benefits, that just shows you how poor the jobs were. I even pointed this out to many of the job advisors and they agreed with me. One example was Jobs in Iceland supermarket where you started off on just 7.5 hours a week on minimum wage…
There were times when some advisors tried to sanction me by cutting my benefits. I don’t want to come across as a brute but sometimes you do need to be “rough” with people. On 1 occasion I was literally 5 minutes late for an appointment, not 6 minutes or 7 minutes, literally 5 minutes. The advisor thought he was going to sanction me but thankfully I was warned about this by some friends long before. So I become suddenly rough and tried to “lightly” intimidate the advisor by keeping eye contact and by explaining that if I’m sanctioned I’m going to “f*cking flip in this office”. I think those are the words I used. I even went red in the face and the advisor quickly told me to calm down. I then deliberately let a few “loose words” slip. I think I remember saying “its gonna be like the 1980’s again here if you people don’t stop hassling people who are trying to get work”. That done the trick. The advisor went white in the face and quickly said there would be no sanctions against me. I was never threatened again with sanctions. The advisors are known to target people who they know wont or cant stand up for themselves.
Now, I don’t encourage other people to do what I did there but I’m not one to just sit by and let some a*rsehole (and he was, many of the advisors are very cocky and look down their noses at people) cut my benefits and leave me in debt because I would’ve had to borrow money to cover the cut benefits. I also believe that advisors get paid for every sanction they deal out. Some are just far too keen to deal them out. There has been many undercover investigations by newspapers into these claims in England.
I know people and have witnessed people doing far worse than what I did. I have witnessed people throwing chairs in the benefits office. Smashing glass doors (that happened many times). Shouting at advisors. I didn’t witness this personally but I heard about it but one man had punched one of the advisors and was later arrested whenever he left and went home. All this happened on the Falls Benefits Office and it was purely due to unfair sanctions. One of the most common threats given to jobs advisors (and the one, I suspect, is the most feared by advisors) is getting dissident paramilitaries involved (I never used such a threat). This happened while I was on benefits for those 2 years, so I don’t know what its like today, I’m sure its worse.
Its tory policy in England to sanction for any slightest “offence”. Undercover newspaper investigations (many videos of this can be viewed on youtube) showed job centre advisors laughing and joking about who they were going to sanction that day. The Manager of one office said to his staff that for every sanction they deal out they are “saving the public money and saving themselves money”.
People on ESA, Employment Support Allowance, a sickness benefit, get even more hassle and prosecution. One woman was filmed undercover saying “we have to meet targets, we can only give a certain number sickness benefit”. When the undercover journalist asks “But what if that person is genuinely sick, do we just say they are fit for work or…..” the woman replies “yes, we send them out to work, we have to meet our targets”.
Owen Jones, a left wing commentator in England, reminded Ian Duncan Smith of a man who was blind in one eye and paralyzed down his left side and couldn’t speak. The man died one day after being found FIT FOR WORK. (I’ll put the video below)
Another example was a man who had serious heart problems. He had to quit work due to advice from his doctor. He went on ESA and he got it. A few weeks later he was brought in for another assessment and was found fit for work. The man and his family complained of his serious heart problems but the government doctors didn’t take this on board. He appealed and won. A few weeks later he was brought in AGAIN for another assessment, the government doctors again ignored his heart condition and found him fit for work. The man was so stressed out over it all he had a heart attack and died. His family blame his death on the Government….
I don’t know if this is true but I read that since the tories came to power in 2010 over 40,000 people who were found “fit to work” have since died of their illnesses. And yet the tories got re-elected…..