I have said it before and no doubt, will have to say it again-if the Government had properly linked information structures in public services, they could easily implement the kind of means testing that would facilitate fair and reasonable cost savings in public services.
Let me explain. Today is budget day. Today, there are expected cuts in child benefit, the PRSI threshold is to rise and duty on fuels, carbon taxes and motor tax are all expected to rise significantly. Add to this the introduction of a property tax that will see an average of between €200-300 being taken from every home owner (read family in most cases) and the various estimates say that the average Irish family by midnight tonight will be anything up to €1,500 worse off.
Now, no one would argue that any universal benefit is a bad idea when austerity is the order of the day and, according to the Tánaiste Eamonn Gilmore, we are only 85% there in terms of balancing the books and still spend €13 billion more than we take in. However, the reality is that there are people in Ireland, working people as well as those on benefits, who have no more to give. People are, according to various media, social and public agency reports, skipping meals to ensure their children are fed, abandoning cars and dropping health insurance while refusing to go to the doctor themselves because they simply cannot afford it. This is Ireland in the 21st century.
However, there are people in this country, from the working population to the retired, that do not need certain of these universal benefits. Michael O’Leary of Ryanair has repeatedly said that he and his family do not need child benefit, and yet the system is so dumb as to be unable to make that distinction itself. Why is this? Why does this persist? A retired TD does not need a medical card, and yet the system seems unable to make that identification and save money.
The "eGovernment 2012 – 2015" strategy document released earlier this year set out in a section titled "Identity And Authentication" a system that it says the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform "has developed" that is a "Single Customer View"
This system is to facilitate, but is not limited to, the Public Services Card proposal.
The document goes on:
"This system takes identity data feeds from a range of national registers across the public service and seeks to match them. CMOD has successfully piloted the system and a range of associated applications with public bodies such as data matching, PPSN look-up, address matching/validation, household control information, and online authentication services. These will be made available on an incremental basis. These solutions will be instrumental in helping public bodies to improve the quality of customer identity data, improve assurances around identity claims, remove duplication of effort from recording and checking processes, and facilitate the provision of online identity services."
Furthermore, in the section entitled "Back-end Integration", Action 41 states:
"When new eGovernment services are being developed, these will, where appropriate, be designed to support cross organisational data sharing opportunities and to facilitate interoperability. This will be a key element of the National Interoperability Framework which will be prepared to comply with the EU Digital Agenda."
Where is this system?
Surely, at a time like this with budget cuts going to affect the most vulnerable, such a system could easily identify the most and least deserving and apply cuts accordingly?
The media is full at the moment of the rifts between front and back benches, between Labour and Fine Gael, on where cuts should fall and who should pay more. But there has been no mention of this system that would facilitate means testing that would ensure that whatever cuts have to be made will fall equitably and so not create more problems than they solve by further reducing people to desperation.
It was reported this week that social HSE staff had made direct pleas to the St Vincent De Paul for help in certain cases where official channels had failed.
Surely we can do better than this?
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