Budget 2025: ‘Targeted support’ in housing and education can remove inequality

Improvements in the areas of housing and education will make a big difference to the lives of Cork families, according to a St Vincent de Paul representative.

SVP regional coordinator Gerry Garvey said: “A big thing is trying to remove the inequality in the system, and an easy way to do this is through targeted supports rather than blanket supports.

“The energy credit is an example of this. Everybody got it, but did everybody really need it? Those at the very bottom absolutely need it and more.”

A two-tier child benefit would also make a difference, he said, explaining: “Child benefit is paid to everybody at the moment and, while for some it’s a bonus, for others it’s a means of trying to keep them fed and warm.”

SVP are also looking for a flat rate 20% increase on social welfare payments across the board, Mr Garvey said.

“Social welfare payments have not kept in pace with the cost-of-living, a flat rate 20% increase would bring us back to 2020 levels.

“Another place the Government can help families is education — we’d like to see a huge increase in the capitation grants provided to schools, free education needs to become free.

“The book scheme went part of the way, we saw the number of calls on that topic drop significantly, but voluntary contributions are another huge issue — the key is funding the schools better so they don’t need to put costs on families.

“In the area of disability, there are far too few specialist supports for families needing assessments for their children and there’s just not enough school places. It’s horrible hearing about people not being able to get their kids into school because they have special needs.”

Finally, increasing the amount of social housing would make an immeasurable difference in the lives of the families SVP help, Mr Garvey said.

“We have huge problems with housing and it’s totally related to supply — there’s huge numbers of local authority homes boarded up, so we want to see all those put into use as a matter of urgency . The money is there to do it.”