Hard working people will “not forgive easily” the Executive parties at Stormont, if vital public services are sacrificed in order to top-up benefits payments in Northern Ireland, according to the Conservative Party’s North Down Westminster PPC, Mark Brotherston.
“Conservatives in government forced the parties at Stormont to finally make some progress on reforming the welfare system, through the Stormont House Agreement”, Mark explained. “However, already, some senior figures from Sinn Féin have claimed that outrageous sums of money have been set aside to top-up benefits payments. The figure of £565 million, over 6 years, has been quoted on a number of occasions. Although Sinn Féin’s claims should be taken with a pinch of salt, it’s essential that the parties follow through properly on the spirit of their commitments at Stormont House.”
“Welfare reform is designed to help claimants off benefits and into work - delivering fairness for hard-working people and targeting money at those who need it the most. It will undermine its aims completely, letting down both those who have been parked on welfare and the people who are paying the bills, if benefits are topped up by re-allocating vast sums of money from the block grant. The parties’ failures to implement welfare reform on time has already meant unnecessary cuts to services in Northern Ireland. They won’t be forgiven easily, if they intend to continue to fuel our destructive benefits dependency by cutting more frontline services for hard-working people.”