Statement: Bacik Welcomes Announcement on Disability Allowance

STATEMENT BY SENATOR IVANA BACIK

Labour Party Seanad leader andSpokesperson on Justice

Wednesday 7th December2011

BACIK WELCOMES ANNOUNCEMENTON DISABILITY ALLOWANCE

Senator Ivana Bacik, leader of the Labour group in the Seanad, today welcomed the announcement that theMinister for Social Protection Joan Burton has suspended the proposed changesto disability allowances for younger applicants pending a review of entitlements.

Senator Bacik said:

“I greatly welcome this announcement,which follows the expression of serious concerns by Labour Senators andTDs about the impact of the proposed changes. I am very pleased that areview has now been ordered and very grateful that the Minister has beenso responsive to the concerns raised.

“Overall, this budget has not been easy and was not put forward in circumstancesof our choosing or our making. In spite of the very difficult economicconstraints under which we are operating, it is however a budget in whichthe poorest 330,000 will be lifted out of the Universal Social Charge net;in which basic rates of jobseekers benefit and children's allowance havebeen preserved; in which pupil-teacher ratios have been maintained; andin which taxes on the income of working people will not be increased. Ivery much welcome those key principles of fairness upon which the budgethas been based and particularly welcome the responsiveness shown by theMinister to the concerns raised.”

ENDS