Maman Poulet

Tonight I’ve been delving into the book of estimates released today in addition to the budget which I was tweeting throughout the day.

Isn’t it just miraculous when lots of agencies that deal with peoples lives and provide services directly to people are having their budgets slashed that one – the National Disability Authority (NDA) – has had it’s budget increased by 23%. Yes thats a near 6 times increase in percentage terms of the cut (-4.1%) that all the disabled people will have to take who are in receipt of social welfare.

The disability service budget in the Department of Environment and Local Government has been cut by 32%.

The Equality Tribunal has had a cut of 8% but the Equality Authority has been untouched after it’s 43% cut last year. Oh we should be grateful for small mercies I hear you say, well we could if people actually received any assistance and these organisations weren’t politically addled or kneecapped.

The HSE has had cuts of 5% across the board and this will mean cuts to all disability services that it funds for the 400,000 disabled people in the state. The budget for disabled people and children’s dental care has been cut by over 33%. A 23% increase in the budget of the NDA – surely this must be a typo??

I await the huge increase in dialogue with people with disabilities that surely must occur now that the NDA has so much extra money! I may be kept waiting.

Maybe they could assist all the disabled people paying huge amounts out of their disability allowance for residential services and now for their medication needed to keep them alive from their reduced Disability Allowance.

There are surely other anomalies in the book of estimates vs. the budget. However I can’t wait to see the strategic plan for the greatly endowed agency which provides advice to the state on disability issues.

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The Seanad is debating the NAMA Bill and Alexia began a live blog of the debate yesterday which for this injured chicken was a delightful way of continuing my recuperation!

Some intriguing questions – Where was Shane Ross during the debate – ‘Business Regulation Expert’ too busy promoting the book? Or too wary of speaking in the house on the issue?  Why is Joe O’Toole of INTO and ICTU fame consistently voting with the Government on the issue? He thinks supporting NAMA is consistent with supporting social democracy according to Senator Alex White.

The Green Party contributions have been as numerous as in the lower house – ie. not a lot.

And then there’s been the tweeting Senators – this is now officially the the most tweeted event from members of the Oireachtas. Paschal Donohue,  Jerry Buttimer and sometimes even Dan Boyle are tweeting during the debate from the chamber – the heckles continue online and are captured in the Liveblog.

The debate in the Seanad has actually been of a high quality with speakers generally well prepared. And there has been a flock of ministers into bring the bill thorugh the house (Flock according to Frances Fitzgerald – whirlygig according to David Norris)

Hop over to the liveblog to have a look at the pictures, Duracell Bunnies and Ladybird books as well as the results and commentary as it happens.

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Fresh from interrupting the Today with Pat Kenny outside broadcast in the Savoy Cinema in O’Connell Street in Dublin, the Community Development Alliance launched CAMA outside the GPO yesterday. (You can listen to the interruption here – (real player required and it’s about 41 minutes in.)  Conor Lenihan and George Lee were said to be a bit put off by it, oops.

The Community Assets Management Agency was launched by people involved in Community Development Projects throughout the country.  Many of those outside were dressed in costumes from 1916 as a proclamation was read. Those who have benefited from the services provided spoke alongside the activists who are leading the campaign.

You can also watch Noreen Byrne from the North Clondalkin CDP speak about the impact of the cuts there and Rita Fagan from St. Michaels CDP lead the group in song. (You may remember Rita from her appearance on Tonight with Vincent Brown where former banker Mike Soden made those remarks about Lone Parents.)

Kitty Holland’s report in the Irish Times includes a quote from Minister for State John Curran regarding the future of the CDP’s, one third of which are due to close and many others to be merged or otherwise severely cut.

Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, John Curran, confirmed today the CDP programme was under review. “I will shortly have a full report on the findings and recommendations,” he said.

It was his intention not to wind-up CDPs but to ensure “a more focused programme with clear objectives, simplified and streamlined delivery structures and better integrated actions, leading to significant administrative savings and impact efficiencies”. This would involve some closing, he said.

You wouldn’t think that the Minister was dealing with peoples lives, never mind livelihoods from the tone of his comments. A scene from Yes Minister?

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While unions, government and the private sector bicker over pay cuts, higher taxation and ‘you earn more than I do’, communities across the land are being decimated by cuts, amalgamations and the steamroller that is the politics of bulldozing the oppressed.

The cuts in services in the field of anti-poverty projects, community childcare, community health, meals on wheels, drop in services, drug rehabilitation projects, projects, youth work organisations ,and community regeneration go largely unreported. It’s not about builders, trophy houses, ministerial salaries or politicians expenses – it’s about the lives of young old, parents, disabled and able bodied and traditionally disenfranchised and those who work with them who have fought hard to build and support themselves and others.

An alliance of community workers and projects are launching CAMA - if you are sick of NAMA this new agency will probably be easier to understand, transparent, able to whistle blow and far more important and feasible to fight to see established.

The Community Development Alliance has set up a new agency to protect the most vulnerable people in Ireland. CAMA aims to protect the Community Development Projects that are being closed down at a time when their services are most needed. Community Development Projects give a voice to those people and communities who consistently experience poverty; we empower people to set up the services, politics and programmes aimed at reducing poverty and inequality. CAMA aims to articulate and protect those those voices.

The board of CAMA and the Community Development Alliance calls for the retention of the CDP programme, with all of its values and ethos protected, including the bottom up approach, and the retention of all community assets that were sought for and fought for in the name of those people and communities who are poor, vulnerable and left out on the margins.

We urge the government to listen to us and reverse the decision to close projects down. It will only hurt the young, the old, the poor, the disabled, the excluded and the marginalised – and it will cost the state more in the end. CDP’s have a proven track record as a ‘value for money’ and it attracts five times more funding that the Department gives to the programme.

The first public event hosted by CAMA will take place on 11am on Friday November 6th at a Press Conference. The venue is a public one, outside of the GPO, on the streets, in solidarity with those communities and CDP’s who will soon lose their projects and community premises and services. CAMA will announce it’s alternative vision for a more equal society.

Speakers will include those who experience poverty and disability, voluntary boards of management, and board members of CAMA. If you believe in equality and a fair share for the poor then please come and hear us.

So that’s 11 am at the GPO on Friday next – all are welcome – if anyone is free with a camera and wants to blog it even better. I hope to be attending in my own Special Purpose Vehicle!

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I’m in the RDS this afternoon for the Green Party Conference on the Renewed Programme for Government. There is a liveblog running and Green Party members are inside the hall tweeting. You can read the full document online and it was available a good hour before the printed version. Loads of reaction online to the contents already this morning. More from me on the liveblog later.

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Next Saturday afternoon the Green Party will debate a revised programme for government which is currently under negotiation with Fianna Fáil. Other than animal welfare/hare coursing (Now backpedalled?) and further changes to NAMA there has been mention that a new framework for Equality monitoring and enforcement being on the agenda.

Another chance for John Gormley to say that the party has saved the day in terms of equality and human rights infrastructure in Ireland. Do you remember the last time he said that the Greens had saved the day? Very little has changed in terms of the cuts experienced by the Equality Authority or the faith and trust of the groups affected by the nine grounds covered under the Equal Status Act.

Before we hear more the deal has to be finalised and of course voted on and passed by two thirds of the party at a special conference to be held in Dublin next weekend. All the Greens (elected and lay members) have been told not to talk about this in public and so all is quiet from the public representatives. Although we did hear yesterday from Senator Dan Boyle and Deputy Ciaran Cuffe regarding the passing of the amendment on the Treaty of Reform of the European Union (I never want to hear the word Lisbon and Treaty again!)

Expect the screw to be turned on the party to do the right thing/in the national interest/insert other worthy statement here. I think it won’t be the deers that will be alone in being stalked in the meantime.

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Ah it is the silly season and RTE1 decided tonight to repeat a special on the Young Irish and Wealthy originally shown last Christmas.

What a difference 8 months makes.

Several of the projects and inflated bank accounts of the people profiled are no longer with us.

Moviestar.ie is a mere Web Awards sponsor memory from last year having being taken over by (handed over to?) Screenclick a short 7 days after the original broadcast.  Bubble Hits is also in that great memorial garden dedicated to once great ideas.

And then there were the builders childer!  Forgive me for laughing…

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I’m on holiday at the moment so have not been able to follow the release of the Report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes but have done a search of the impact of the proposed cuts on people with disabilities.

A quick comment…

Cuts to 2000 Special Needs Assistants means that many children with disabilities will either stay outside of mainstream education and return to segregated schools – which are very few in number (and remember that segregated classes in mainstream schools were scrapped in the last budget).

You could almost feel the glee with which reference was made to the postponement in the roll out of the Disability Act and needs assessment of people with disabilities and how costs could be made by rediverting resources elsewhere.

Cutting social welfare allowances was to be expected and we could see people with disabilities disappear even further from the workforce including community employment schemes as the report recommends that people with disabilities and others are not able to keep part of their social welfare allowances when taking jobs.  There is a cost to disability that is not included in social welfare or salaries, there is also the fact that many disabled people cannot work full time – that is all topped by not being able to get work in the first place due to discrimination. Those are the reasons additional allowances and retention of some social welfare allowances was developed. But we cant afford disabled people in this society according to An Bord Snip.

The current review of services provided to people with disabilities by the voluntary sector is already underway and if the same mindset is in place then the rights of people with disabilities will not be to the fore in the examination. It would be great if this review actually asked people with disabilities what they felt about the quality of the service they received and whether they were actually doing what they wanted to do rather than endless pottery and yoga and personal development courses, travelling in minibuses marked out as ambulances donated by local businesses and labelling us as other.

Finally I note that the report recommends that the disability ‘bits’ of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform are moved to the Department of Health and Children. The medical model returns and Dermot Ahern would only be delighted to be getting rid of anything to do with human rights in his Department.

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A video of the majority of the supplementary bludget speech from Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan to Dáil Eireann yesterday. The row at the beginning over the press getting the speech first is very interesting!  I’ve not watched it all through again (once is enough for anyone!) but if you notice anything startling leave a comment!

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Well it’s no surprise that our government are cowards but reading the fine print of the social welfare cuts I can’t believe the measures outlined in reference to rent allowance and the way tenants are being manipulated in an effort to reduce the social welfare spend and again landlords are being let off the hook.

Changes are being made to the Rent Supplement scheme to achieve savings of €50 million in 2009 and €78 million in 2010.
-Entitlement is being restricted to individuals who have been an existing tenant for at least six months or who have been placed on a local authority housing list following a full housing assessment. This measure is intended to avoid people moving into private rented accommodation simply because of the availability of Rent Supplement. -The minimum contribution that recipients of Rent Supplement & Mortgage Interest Supplement make towards their rent or mortgage is being increased from €18 to €24 per week (This will bring rent supplement contributions more in line with local authority differential rents).
-The maximum rent limits that will apply to new Rent Supplement payments are being reduced to reflect reductions in private rent levels in recent months. Reductions will be 6% to 7% on average, ranging up to 10%, depending on the geographical area and household size.
-In order to encourage landlords of existing rent supplement tenants to reduce their rents given the reductions in the market as a whole, the payments currently being made to tenants are being reduced by 8%. While tenants are contractually obliged to pay the rent agreed to in their lease, it is hoped that landlords will decrease the rent in recognition of the fact that rents have fallen generally and that there are now a large number of vacant rental properties nationally.

In order to encourage landlords to reduce rent the Government is reducing the rent allowance by 8 percent and increasing the amount tenants must contribute. And they are expecting tenants to do the negotiating to get their rent decreased! Incredible!

It’s so astonishing it’s worth paraphrasing and repeating -  Limits are being reduced creating ghettos and allowances being paid are also being reduced and rental contributions from tenants are being increased – a triple whammy.

As I said previously rents on properties in the rent allowance sector are not falling as quickly as they are in other areas of the market. Rents outside of Dublin are not falling as quickly either.  Finding a property and landlord which accepts rent allowance is very difficult no matter how much rents are falling due to issues of tax avoidance and landlords not wishing to rent to people in receipt of social welfare payments.

Unless discrimination against tenants who receive rent allowance is barred (and this is very unlikely as property owners rights remain sacrosanct!) we will see tenants becoming homeless and living on even lower incomes as they become afraid to raise the issue with landlords in case they are unsuccessful or are unable to find somewhere else to live.

Landlords and developers still remain protected. And apartments will remain empty and sites unfinished and the homeless list growing as no money will be available for social housing.

And oh yes landlords still get €500million in tax relief on their mortgage interest after today’s budget. Fairness!

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