He’s at it again, you know. By he, I mean Taoiseach Simon Harris.
By it, I mean his relative tough talk around how Fine Gael, if it was returned to Government would implement a “means-tested, income-linked contribution towards State accommodation for international protection applicants with jobs”.
“Common sense” he called it yesterday. “The next step we must take on,” he said, “is around a contribution model for people in international protection. “Now, let me be really clear: I’m talking about people who are earning money.”
Harris made similar comments back in September, and clearly it must have gone down well in internal party polling for him to repeat his position on the matter now.
I do not imagine for one minute there is any principled commitment to the proposition.
If there was, wouldn’t Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and other members of the uni-party have acted on the 2018 statutory instrument outlining precisely how such a contribution model for employed and self-employed international protection applicant’s resident in state provided accommodation should work?
This entire issue was only exposed following parliamentary questions from Independent Offaly TD Carol Nolan back in April.
In April, Deputy Nolan demonstrated that IPAS, despite the statutory instrument clearly providing for a scaled level of contributions had not asked a single employed IPAS resident earning over €600 a week for a cent in such contributions.
Gript covered the issue here, as did John Drennan at the Daily Mail who also gave the issue prominent coverage at the time.
Most recently in October, Carol Nolan asked Minister Roderic O’Gorman yet another follow-up parliamentary question on the contributions issue.
Minister O’Gorman told her at that point that “on foot of Government approval to conduct an overall review of entitlements for those within the International Protection (IP) system, my Department has been asked by Government to explore options for adults in receipt of income, that are living in International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) accommodation, to make an income-based contribution to accommodation costs. The overall purpose of this proposal is to ensure equity and fairness in accommodation-related contributions sought from people across all of society, including those in IPAS accommodation. Many other EU Member States operate some form of contribution model in this sector. The income limits and contribution rates used vary from country to country.”
Sounds good doesn’t it. A year ago it would have been ‘far-right’ to even suggest such a thing.
But again, the key point here is why was nothing done to advance this issue from 2018, and why did it take the probing questions of Carol Nolan for Government to get its finger out and introduce some basic bloody fairness into the situation?
Simon Harris and his Government partners had 5 years to act on the contribution model for employed and self-employed IPAS residents. The reality is however that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green’s chose to do the sum total of diddly-squat despite the clear and obvious fact that failing to do so was tantamount to preferential treatment against all those who, for instance, live in HAP or social housing accommodation and who are legally obliged to make a financial contribution toward their accommodation (whether they are working or not in some cases).
So much for the vaunted ‘Harris Energy’
Carol Nolan said back in May that “It is clear to me, and I think it will be clear to most reasonable people that there is a level of preferential treatment being afforded here that is entirely unacceptable and indeed deeply frustrating.”
We can now add the disingenuous, late to the party, remarks of Simon Harris to the list of things about which we can all feel deeply frustrated. But then again, as Pat Rabbitte once said, isn’t that what you do during an election?