The Westminster Coalition Attacks the Vulnerable

The decision to re-package Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in order to cut the cost of this benefit by 20% is to be deplored. There are a number of factors that explain the relatively high up-take of DLA in Northern Ireland and there have been despicable attempte to use these statistics as a stick by which to beat Northern Ireland. However, the telling statistic is that on average some 30% of applicants are disallowed, while something in the order of 50% of appeals against the decision to disallow, succeed at Appeal Tribunals.

Bearing in mind that it is government officials who disallow claimants, and it is independent tribunals who overturn half of their decisions, it is clear that there is an expectation on the part of officialdom to reduce the welfare budget by denying the neediest in society the safety net that any civilised society should afford them.

The Tories in this coalition government, these children of Thatcher are faithfully following in the footsteps of their forebears whose default position has always been to target the vulnerable; the poor, the weak and the voiceless.