Monthly Article by Regional President, Brendan Dempsey
Employers and their representative organisations have combined, supported by a number of Government Ministers, to attack the national minimum wage and to demand cuts in social welfare rates. There is a common denominator amongst all these people. They are unlikely to be amongst the thousands of people who won’t be able to afford to heat their homes this winter, as shown in this week’s report from the Central Statistics Office. They are unlikely to be amongst the people to whom a cut in social welfare may make the difference between being able to afford a bag of coal or enough food. In other words, they are not amongst the poor, or those in need.
The CSO report is shocking. In a nation where massive wealth was squandered by the speculative greed of developers, fuelled by reckless bankers, supported by a Government which failed to manage the nation’s affairs with prudence, households headed by people on lower-than-average incomes and in higher levels of poverty, either cannot afford enough fuel to heat their homes or have no heating systems installed. This is because they cannot afford them.
Is there no shame amongst the employers, or the Government Ministers who are demanding that the minimum wage be reduced, or that the old age pension be cut and other social welfare rates slashed?
Removed from the reality of living on these basic payments, such people have no appreciation of what life is really like. They have misrepresented the facts. The minimum wage in Ireland is not the highest, nor the second highest in Europe. To justify their view, they say publicly that they are not “employee bashing,” that they are trying to sustain employment.
The Society of St.Vincent de Paul does not support misuse of social welfare. It is not against employers making reasonable profits to justify their efforts, to reward them for their entrepreneurial spirit. But it stands firmly against exploitation and greed.
“There is exploitation when the Master considers the Worker, not as an associate, as a helper but as an instrument from which he must draw the greatest service at the lowest possible cost.”
Those are not my words, but the views of the founder of the SVP, Frederic Ozanam, in a Lecture on Commercial Law, given away back in1840. They are applicable today when, regrettably, Ireland has reached the social situation against which the SVP has been warning for many years. In pre-Budget submissions during the years of the “Celtic Tiger,” the Society of St.Vincent de Paul warned the Government that its policies were creating a “two-tier nation”; that it was favouring and supporting the “haves” and ignoring the “have-nots”; that this would result, when as would be inevitable in economics, there would be a down-turn and the nation would not have prepared properly and prudently for it. The SVP warned that the Government was not using the wealth of the nation to improve social conditions for those in need, those still in poverty.
Those warnings were ignored as greed dominated Ireland.
Calls for a reduction in Social Welfare and minimum wage are frightening for those living at the bottom of the ladder. Ultimately cuts may be necessary but cuts on the poor cannot be justified until those at the top of the ladder pay their fare share. There have been some small percentage of cuts in earnings at the top but they go no where near causing the same as loss of a few euro an hour make to the poor. At the bottom of the scale families are living with their ESB cut off or perhaps no gas. Some have lost their homes and a lot more will in the near future.
It is the duty of Governments to manage prudently. That has not been done and now, fuelled by the demands of employers, the Government is turning on those most in need. The target of this approach is the national minimum wage and social welfare rates. Governments should be much more careful about their level of expenditure and that includes the money spent on salaries. Our Taoiseach earns more than President Obama and our civil servants are paid more than those in the USA. That cannot be justified.
They should remember other words of Frederic Ozanam:
“Will life develop into a means of exploitation for the strongest members to make huge profits, or will everyone devote themselves to the common good and the protection of the weak?”
The Society of St.Vincent de Paul is unequivocal. It speaks for the protection of the weak.
If you would like to help the Society contact our Regional Office at 2 Tuckey Street, Cork on 021-4270444.