IRISH TIMES, KATHY SHERIDAN, AND IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM
Aug 4th, 2009 by Conor McCabe
“Most people who haven’t engaged with the system before and don’t know how to maximise benefits have no idea what they’re heading into. They are asked to produce bank statements and they produce them – only to find that no help is forthcoming until they’ve made themselves completely broke. (”Taking stock of the newly destitute“, Irish Times, 25 July 2009)
If you’ve been made recently unemployed, whatever you do don’t wait until you are “completely broke” before going to the Dole office.
The first €20,000 you have in your bank account is NOT ACCESSED as means for social welfare and community welfare payments.
After that, you are accessed €1 a week for every €1,000 you have between €20,000 and €30,000, and €2 a week for every €1,000 between €30,000 and €40,000.
After that, you are accessed €4 a week for very €1,000 over €40,000.
Also, if you’ve got a second home, the outstanding mortgage is taken into account with regard to means.
Check out the information on the Citizen’s Information website, and for your own benefit (pardon the pun), throw the Irish Times in the bin.
Are liabilities taken on board? E.g Student Loans
There are two ways to interpret that sentence in my opinion. Of course, it should only be interpretable in one way for clarity but alas that has not happened in this instance.
“Most people who haven’t engaged with the system before and don’t know how to maximise benefits have no idea what they’re heading into. They are asked to produce bank statements and they produce them”
This part I think we both believe is true…
“… – only to find that no help is forthcoming until they’ve made themselves completely broke.”
It can be interpreted in the way you have done - that Sheridan is almost encouraging people to become broke because they’ll get their entitlements quicker. Alternatively it could be interpreted that Sheridan is alluding to the delays in the social welfare system - up to a massive and disgraceful 13 weeks in some areas - and is saying that no services are available until a person has become destitute not through the fact they have become broke but rather that they have become broke through the fact there are such delays in the social welfare system.
Of course, the problem is that the sentence can be misinterpreted, which is unfortunate, but journalists are fallible too, believe me…
I don’t think Sheridan is out to mislead in any way - and overall her article is somewhat critical of the shortcoming of the social welfare system. I just find it really irresponsible that she didn’t check this up. The quote above is itself a quote from an anonymous source - something that her article is full of - and to me that itself seems really strange. I mean, since when did people have to speak “off the record” about standard procedure and welfare entitlements? But I take the point about how it can be read in alternative ways.
With regard to the delay for 13 weeks - you can go to the community welfare officer, and they should be able to pay you social welfare rates while you are waiting for the payment to come through.
In fact, if you DON’T go to the community welfare officer, the Dole could turn around and ask you why you didn’t go, and ask what did you live off for the 13 weeks. This happened to me once. I had money in the credit union, though, just enough as it turned out to get me through the 13 weeks I was waiting (They lost my file!). By the way, the payment is backdated, so I ended up getting a lump sum of 13 wks for my first payment. And as I knew that was going to happen, and as I had enough savings for the three months, I didn’t go to the welfare officer. The Dole had a copy of my credit union statement, and so knew about my savings, but they asked anyway. There you go.
@ Disgraced minister
As far as I know, income is accessed as means, not liabilities. It doesn’t matter how much debt you have, it’s how much income you have that matters, and from what sources. An overdraft, however, is taken into account. More info can be found here:
http://www.welfare.ie/EN/OperationalGuidelines/Pages/meansassess.aspx#sect1
But in terms of social welfare payment, my general rule of thumb is apply, apply, apply. It’s up to them to turn YOU down. So always apply, and then appeal!
I think the line taken in the piece is similar to Sarah Carey’s one on inequality. The comments she left on Progressive Economy which linked to it were telling. From her point of view the recession is going to hit the middle class the hardest because they will go from being top earners to getting dole payments.
That’s not Sheridan’s point but she is writing for a paper that is trying to engage with its audience and as the readership surveys show, the majority of Irish Times readers are middle class, ABC1s etc.
So this is an article to milk the sympathies of their audience rather than providing an accurate account of how life is on social welfare. It’s also part of a trend known as recession journalism - when you have a good story, why let facts get in the way.
“The quote above is itself a quote from an anonymous source”
Isn’t that quote from FG County Councillor Irene Winters?
It is indeed.