A social benefit claimant had the audacity to rent out his social housing to lapdancers, Social Policy Minister Michael Farrugia said yesterday as he highlighted the savings being made by putting a stop to benefit abuse.
He said that between January and October, 1,281 inspections were carried out and benefits were stopped in 724 cases, saving the government some €3 million.
Winding up the debate on his ministry’s 2015 financial estimates of over €1 billion, Dr Farrugia announced that the Exchequer was handing out a total of €870 million in different forms of social benefit to 140,000 people.
He vowed the government would not tolerate or defend abuse. He gave the example of a man who lived in a social housing unit and was found to be renting it out to lapdancers.
The government would also ensure social services were sustainable.
Over 200 people had benefited from incentives to encourage those who have been on the unemployment register for two years to return to work.
A total of €500,000 had been allocated to pensions and social housing and over 11,000 pensioners and 150 widows retained a full pension even though they kept on working.
The process had started to set the national minimum pension at 60 per cent of the average national wage. A policy on poverty and social exclusion was due to be rolled out shortly.
He also talked of a fostering and adoption agency to protect families from abuse by unscrupulous persons.
Social housing projects in Paola and St Paul’s Bay were being upgraded. He referred to a cluster of buildings in Mtarfa which had been declared to be structurally unsound. He said that as of next Saturday, samples of the building material used would be taken to be investigated in overseas laboratories.
Saying that family-friendly measures would be strengthened, Dr Farrugia listed the many measures, such as cheaper utility bills, which helped families improve their quality of life. The free child care centres were costing more than €4,000 per child. Siblings were not being split up when a decision to foster was taken and families who fostered them were being compensated.
The government was also examining how missing national insurance contributions, which affect a person’s pension, could be compensated.
The minister took the Opposition to task for suggesting the introduction of a second pillar pension with a concomitant increase in NI contributions for both the employee and the employer. The present administration would ensure that the NI contribution would remain the same as would the retirement age – fixed at 65 until 2027.
For the Opposition the issue of poverty was a perception when under the previous administration people on the poverty line had increased by 20,000.