DUP and Sinn Fein in blame game as thousands ‘head to welfare cliff edge’

A £585 million welfare mitigation package was agreed by the DUP and Sinn Fein in 2016 to offset what they saw as the impact of UK-wide welfare reforms, including the bedroom tax, benefit cap and transitions from DLA to Personal Independent Payments.

Kevin Higgins, head of policy at Advice NI and one of the package’s architects, told the News Letter that NI is “on the brink of a welfare mitigations disaster”.

He added: “We have a mitigation package which has sheltered thousands of people from the harshest impacts of welfare reform, impacts that are disproportionately greater in NI than anywhere else.

“We have inadequate, segregated social housing and higher rates of disability and larger family sizes, all of which places our most vulnerable low-income families at grave risk of destitution and homelessness when the payments they rely on end in March.”

A recent inquiry by MPs found that income in over 35,000 NI households would “fall suddenly, some by hundreds of pounds per month”.

Similarly, the end of benefit cap mitigation would likely see 1,500 households lose almost £170 per month.

The Department for Communities said that it cannot extend the legislation without an Assembly, but is working on solutions if Stormont or Westminster don’t intervene.

Andy McClenaghan from The Cliff Edge Coalition urged the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) to intervene.

“In the absence of a devolved government we need to see Westminster step in and legislate,” he said.

However, the NIO responded that extending the mitigations is a devolved matter for the NI Civil Service and Executive ministers.

DUP MLA Keith Buchanan said the solution is to restore the Assembly. Mitigations have been discussed “intermittently” at inter-party talks but not as an “absolute priority” he said, though the DUP wants it to it to be dealt with at leader level.

“It is time for others to lift their boycott and get back to work,” he added.

But Sinn Fein MLA Paul Maskey insisted it is a core issue for his party, having raised it with prime ministers and secretaries of state and secured broad agreement with other parties.

“Sinn Fein is committed to the restoration of the Good Friday Agreement institutions but the outstanding issues must be dealt with,” he added.

A Co Armagh woman who was put on Universal Credit – part of the Welfare Reform programme – has described the process as “absolutely horrible”.

Pat Wilson, 61, from Keady, suffers from fibromyalgia and had been a full-time carer for her severely disabled son, Sean, for 30 years.

After he died in February 2018, she was transferred from Income Support and Carers Allowance on to the new Universal Credit (UC), which is rolling out as part of the UK-wide welfare reform programme.

While previous benefits are paid in advance, UC is paid in arrears, often leaving claimants with a gap of several weeks without money.

“It was absolutely horrible,” Pat said.

She lived in a specially adapted house to cope with Sean’s condition, with four bedrooms to accommodate her two other sons,

“But after they moved out they told me I had to pay for the extra bedrooms. I had no intention of staying in it, but I was spoken to as though I was nothing.”

Eventually she was able to move into a smaller house.

She felt she had been questioned about ‘missing’ rent which later turned out to have been contained within two previous payments.

“I had Citizens Advice working on it but they could not get through to them. Eventually they realised it was a mistake but it got me up to £1,000 in arrears.”

UC paid the arrears eventually but when she asked for an explanation she was sent 200 pages about her case.

“At one point the advisors asked me if I had any friends or family I could borrow money from.”

She describes her late son as “beautiful” but says advisors appeared sceptical that he had required full-time care for 30 years.

The Department for Communities said it does not comment on individual cases.