Noonan & Howlin are all smiles while young unemployed and elderly are hit with cuts
Naas Fianna Fáil representative and 2014 local election candidate Rob Power has labelled last week’s budget as an attack on young people. He claims that the government seem to be convinced that young people would rather sit idle than get a job.
Trying to defend the €80 cut in dole payments to under 25’s last week Eamon Gilmore said “the place for any young person is not permanently in front of a flat screen TV.”
“That was a disgraceful comment to make and goes to show how out of touch this government is with young people today” said Power.
Rob went on to say, “In the last year we’ve lost 89,000 people to emigration with the vast majority of those being in their twenties. There is a serious brain drain of Ireland’s young people and the dole cut will only exacerbate the problem. The fact is that the jobs market is still extremely tough for newly qualified graduates and the state sponsored training courses are not targeting the right areas. This budget gives no new hope to young people desperately looking for work.”
“Across Kildare many families are struggling to cope. The situation for these families is even more challenging when a young person in the house cannot find work. That individual is not going to survive on €100 per week without family support so in essence this cut has hit more pockets than the government has suggested.”
Rob concluded “We are being told we’ve reached the end of the austerity budgets but what Ministers Noonan and Howlin did last week was ensure that the most vulnerable in our society will feel the effects for some time to come.”
Cllr Rob Power 
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