How can Labour support this Budget?

By Paul Hayes, West Cork

I WONDER did the people of Cork and across the country really think that when they voted for Labour candidates last February that a short nine months later their Dáil deputies would support such a savage attack on the most vulnerable in our society?

People have come to expect that Fine Gael would always side with the more-well-off in society and protect their interests but what has become of Labour?
Brendan Howlin’s first phase of the Budget has left people with a bad taste and as more details of Labour/Fine Gael's hatchet job come to light people will be rightly sickened by what is transpiring.
The decision to cut the fuel allowance by €120 is scandalous and will cost lives. This cut will hit older people and those with disabilities worst. This follows cuts of up to 25% to fuel allowance and the household benefits package imposed by the Government in September. And it comes at a time when fuel prices are increasing sharply.
We know that up to 2,000 people die here every winter from the cold. These deaths are entirely avoidable if people are helped to buy their fuel. Minister Howlin just tolled the death knell for hundreds more.
Phase one of the Budget announced on Monday targets the most vulnerable while those at the top continue to be protected. Older people, those with disabilities and children all face drastic cuts while cuts to top-level pay are negligible.
By cutting Back-to-School Allowance, Child Benefit, payments for lone parents on CE and reducing the age cap to seven for One Parent Family Allowance, cutting the part-time jobseekers’ payments, increasing the tenants’ contribution to rent allowance and by cutting CE supports, the minister is taking food out of the mouths of the poorest in society.
Minister Burton is sucking €475million out of local economies, which will lead to more job losses and therefore more families depending on social welfare.
Labour Party members have turned their backs on the most vulnerable – shame on them.