IBEC Looking to cut welfare payments by 3%

Joey the lips

IBEC are calling for a 3% cut in welfare payments today due to the fact that the goverment based the rise in last years budjet on the predicted rise in inflation to 2.5%

I have no doubt that I will get the usual jokers saying cut the whole lot and granted the cut is predicted to save 400 million but does anybody not think this flys in the face of the goverment plan to get people out spending more.


"Hi people the solution to saving the economy is to spend more by the way we are taking more from you"

It just seems daft.

Diarmuid

Joey the lips wrote: »

I have no doubt that I will get the usual jokers saying cut the whole lot and granted the cut is predicted to save 400 million but does anybody not think this flys in the face of the goverment plan to get people out spending more.

We can't afford to pay it. It's a simple as that. Sure it would be great if we could pay people €210 or €300 or €500 on welfare but we can't. We don't have the money.

cavedave

Does anyone have any data on how much welfare should be? By this i mean is there some agreed standard of living that dole or a pension should give you. And if so how much would such a standard of living cost?

Sorry I'm not explaining this right. I assume welfare payments are supposed to cover food, light, heat, clothes, transport and some entertainment (anything else?). How much do these cost in Ireland today?

Joey the lips

cavedave wrote: »

Does anyone have any data on how much welfare should be? By this i mean is there some agreed standard of living that dole or a pension should give you. And if so how much would such a standard of living cost?

Sorry I'm not explaining this right. I assume welfare payments are supposed to cover food, light, heat, clothes, transport and some entertainment (anything else?). How much do these cost in Ireland today?

Your explaining it perfectly I always wondered the same. But I generally take my information from statasitical sources that are reliable like

St Vincent De Paul
Combat poverty agency


Oh by the way entertainement is not covered its designed to be a cost of living allowence as such


on this topic and they seem to think welfare rec is not paid enough so I wonder the same myself ie does the CSO not come up with an amount

Diarmuid

Joey the lips wrote: »

Your explaining it perfectly I always wondered the same. But I generally take my information from statasitical sources that are reliable like

St Vincent De Paul
Combat poverty agency

They might be reliable sources but they are not impartial. When was the last time you heard one of those agencies saying welfare was too high?

cavedave

Im having trouble finding this data. You'd think there would be some evidence that welfare payments are based on.

Here is a survey of food prices. xls at bottom has a list of prices.

That still does not tell us what it costs to feed yourself for a week though.

I cannot find a breakdown anywhere of how you are supposed to spend your welfare payment in order to cover the necessities of life. It may be that the welfare payments are too high. Or indeed that we cannot afford to pay them anyway. But evidence on what they should be would shed some light on the debate though.

thebman

Well in order to feed yourself for the week, you'd need to look at the food pyramid and how many items from each grouping your supposed to get coupled with the average cost of items in each group and that would be your food budget.

Rent is the killer here IMO. Mortgages too (I know people can't expect dole to pay mortgage but there needs to be job opportunities for these people or we end up paying the whole mortgage when they default as the debt is state guaranteed).

Then you have electricity prices and home heating which has to be paid.

Everything else should probably be coming out of peoples savings including a mortgage payment or two.

Joey the lips

Diarmuid wrote: »

They might be reliable sources but they are not impartial. When was the last time you heard one of those agencies saying welfare was too high?

Impartiality has nothing to do with it when it comes to these organisations. They are non political organisations who report on fact but seen as though your commenting I gather you think the cuts are acceptable if that be the case why dont you give up your job and see how well you survive on the money

I guarantee it will be a baptism of fire for you. There is something you fail to take into account in these cuts. Yes the cost of food has dropped but rent payments have not dropped utilities have not dropped yet but are due to. Costs associated with raising kids has risen, again fact. but you seem to think a cut is justified?


Have you anything to back up your findings are do you simply base it on a reason to argue??

I am very reasonable when I see supporting facts. In fact I will thank you for pointing it out.


~~~~~~ good to see the humour brigade below keeping up the side - take it all ~~~~~~~~~

swiss

3%?

It should be closer to 50%, IMO.

cavedave

I have found cost of living estimates for students.

here puts cost of food at 70-100 per week

here
costs medical 13 euro a month on average (but students are young). Also you get a medical card after a while on welfare.

here says heat and light say € 57 per month

So thats about 120 a week for food, light, heat and medical. Clothes I have not counted. Transport + phone I have not counted. Various charges for bins and tv licence etc I have not counted. Accommodation I have not counted.

Diarmuid

Joey the lips wrote: »

Impartiality has nothing to do with it when it comes to these organisations. They are non political organisations who report on fact but seen as though your commenting I gather you think the cuts are acceptable if that be the case why dont you give up your job and see how well you survive on the money

I guarantee it will be a baptism of fire for you. There is something you fail to take into account in these cuts. Yes the cost of food has dropped but rent payments have not dropped utilities have not dropped yet but are due to. Costs associated with raising kids has risen, again fact. but you seem to think a cut is justified?


Have you anything to back up your findings are do you simply base it on a reason to argue??

I am very reasonable when I see supporting facts. In fact I will thank you for pointing it out.


~~~~~~ good to see the humour brigade below keeping up the side - take it all ~~~~~~~~~

Good to see you discuss this in a reasoned manner.

BTW I am not currently employed (or on welfare), but thanks for the warning anyway.

Joey the lips

cavedave wrote: »

I have found cost of living estimates for students.

here puts cost of food at 70-100 per week

here
costs medical 13 euro a month on average (but students are young). Also you get a medical card after a while on welfare.

here says heat and light say € 57 per month

So thats about 120 a week for food, light, heat and medical. Clothes I have not counted. Transport + phone I have not counted. Various charges for bins and tv licence etc I have not counted. Accommodation I have not counted.

Your reasoning of the facts is slightly off what you get is

120 - 160 per week based on the high of the food spend for 1 student

but I think your figures look good but the crux is do you think a cut is justified

Diarmuid

Joey the lips wrote: »

120 - 160 per week based on the high of the food spend for 1 student

Sounds high to me. I have been keeping track of my groceries spending for 1 year. The average weekly spend was €108 for myself and my gf. However we do eat out maybe once per week so you'd need to factor that in.

cavedave

Joey the lips

Your reasoning of the facts is slightly off what you get is

120 - 160 per week based on the high of the food spend for 1 student

but I think your figures look good but the crux is do you think a cut is justified

I think its too early to pick a figure yet. We seem to be coming to a consensus on food costs. But the rest (light heat transport) and the extras still have to be nailed down.

Joey the lips

You also need to factor in the fact that the social welfare does not pay 200 x 2 for 2 people it treats them as a co habiting or married couple and gives them far less. Pehaps some on welfare will confirm additionally they only give 10 euro or the like per child.

cavedave

The child one seems to be a big issue alright. How much does it cost to raise a child? Clothes, education, sports all these costs have to be figured out.

Still my current question is how much welfare is needed by a single person to meet life necessities.

cost of food at 80
light heat medical 20
bin, tv license etc 10
Transport and phone, cosmetics 30
rent 20 euro at least (according to snubbleste)
thats 160 a week.

If any of these are inaccurate or I'm missing something please correct the calculation

TommyGunne

Joey the lips wrote: »

Impartiality has nothing to do with it when it comes to these organisations. They are non political organisations who report on fact but seen as though your commenting I gather you think the cuts are acceptable if that be the case why dont you give up your job and see how well you survive on the money

They are quite biased. Claiming otherwise is crazy talk. They would be the worst charities ever if they weren't.

Joey the lips wrote: »

Rent payments have not dropped. Fact.

[ ] Fact. They have. Tried to find a reference article, of which there have been a few, but they have. There will be a small temporary spike caused by less people buying, and some people being forced to move out, but this will not reverse the overall downward trend of rent prices at the moment.

It would be crazy not to reduce welfare payments. Cost of living has gone down, we had relatively high welfare anyway, so take them down a bit. You say that we want to encourage spending. Any welfare changes don't really impact that, as they contribute very little to spending anyways. Might actually encourage a few people who have lost their jobs to take a worse job short term rather than sitting round waiting.

Take it off welfare and put it back in somewhere else imo.

Diarmuid

cavedave wrote: »

The child one seems to be a big issue alright. How much does it cost to raise a child? Clothes, education, sports all these costs have to be figured out.

Kids are not cheap but you need to factor in Child Benefit, Back to school allowance, increase in welfare benefit (€26/week fully qualified),Fuel Allowance, and others. I appreciate that these sums are not huge and not everyone qualifies but they are available,.

greendom

Joey the lips wrote: »

You also need to factor in the fact that the social welfare does not pay 200 x 2 for 2 people it treats them as a co habiting or married couple and gives them far less. Pehaps some on welfare will confirm additionally they only give 10 euro or the like per child.

A family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children) is entitled to €390 a week approx

Joey the lips

greendom wrote: »

A family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children) is entitled to €390 a week approx

Thats good did not know that. do you think a 3% cut on this would affect them much?? 3% = 23 Euro

thebman

cavedave wrote: »

The child one seems to be a big issue alright. How much does it cost to raise a child? Clothes, education, sports all these costs have to be figured out.

Still my current question is how much welfare is needed by a single person to meet life necessities.

cost of food at 80
light heat medical 20
bin, tv license etc 10
Transport and phone, cosmetics 30
thats 140 a week.

If any of these are inaccurate or I'm missing something please correct the calculation

Rent! Rent allowance is only 200 euro. Find a room for 200 euro. I'm in the cheapest accomodation in town at the moment at 280 euro. When I tell people what I pay their jaws drop. So rent allowance is not enough to cover rent.

spank_inferno

A 3% drop makes the JSA drop from €204 to €198.

However its my opinion that the government will probably leave the core dole payment as is, but considerably tighten the other payments & allowences, eg: rent/fuel/utility bills etc

I could be wrong, we'll wait and see.

nesf

cavedave wrote: »

The child one seems to be a big issue alright. How much does it cost to raise a child? Clothes, education, sports all these costs have to be figured out.

Still my current question is how much welfare is needed by a single person to meet life necessities.

cost of food at 80
light heat medical 20
bin, tv license etc 10
Transport and phone, cosmetics 30
thats 140 a week.

If any of these are inaccurate or I'm missing something please correct the calculation

Issues:

Light and heat especially are tricky to work out. Living alone for a single person they're much much higher than for a single person sharing a house with others. Ditto bin and TV licence if there's any sharing of meals between the housemates.

Medical is either high or non-existent depending if someone has a medical card or not. Kids are the big factor here, plus how do you take into account people on long term medication who aren't entitled to free drugs (i.e anyone with a mental illness who is over the age of 16 for example).

Kids are expensive but a large amount of that expense can be shared around if you have more than one or if other family members have them.

cavedave

I would be of the opinion that if more money is required for the welfare of children then it should be given to those with children. Not given to all people on welfare in case they have children. So the question of the 'neccesary' level of welfare payment to a single person still applies.

I am not saying that if the welfare payment is X amount above 'necessary' level this is wrong. I just think it is worth quantifying how much of a welfare payment is necessary for a reasonable standard of living and how much is given for improvements on this quality of life (Reasonable here might be the wrong word).

Diarmuid

thebman wrote: »

Rent! Rent allowance is only 200 euro. Find a room for 200 euro. I'm in the cheapest accomodation in town at the moment at 280 euro. When I tell people what I pay their jaws drop. So rent allowance is not enough to cover rent.

I don't think that's correct. It's quite complex to calculate rental allowance but here are the maximums.For a single person in their own accom is €130pw in Dublin.

Time Magazine

nesf wrote: »

Light and heat especially are tricky to work out. Living alone for a single person they're much much higher than for a single person sharing a house with others. Ditto bin and TV licence if there's any sharing of meals between the housemates.

The typical method to deal with this is to scale the income to account for more people. Typically the denominator is determined by 1 + 0.7X + 0.5Y + 0.3Z, where x = number of additional adults in house, y = number of children over 5 and z = number of children under 5.

Diarmuid

cavedave wrote: »

(Reasonable here might be the wrong word).

I would use the word "basic"

nesf

cavedave wrote: »

I would be of the opinion that if more money is required for the welfare of children then it should be given to those with children. Not given to all people on welfare in case they have children. So the question of the 'neccesary' level of welfare payment to a single person still applies.

I am not saying that if the welfare payment is X amount above 'necessary' level this is wrong. I just think it is worth quantifying how much of a welfare payment is necessary for a reasonable standard of living and how much is given for improvements on this quality of life (Reasonable here might be the wrong word).

Well, for contrast. The Dole will net you circa €240 per week. Child allowance for one child will get you €160 per month. People seem to be under some delusion that Child allowance is much bigger than this and somehow comparable to the Dole where it's really a small fraction of it.

€160 a month will easily cover the "current costs" of rearing a child excluding medical bills. What it won't do is cover the "capital costs" of child rearing (furniture, the need to rent a larger home, school books, to a reasonable extent toys etc).


Personally, I'd like to see a larger child allowance that's means tested where part of it is in voucher rather than cash form (to force it's spending on the kids). So toy vouchers for Christmas and similar for very low income families and such.

nesf

The Economist wrote: »

The typical method to deal with this is to scale the income to account for more people. Typically the denominator is determined by 1 + 0.7X + 0.5Y + 0.3Z, where x = number of additional adults in house, y = number of children over 5 and z = number of children under 5.

Indeed, but energy efficiency is the killer here. Accurately working out what it costs given that their homes generally will not be filled with expensive insulation, high quality electrical durables with good energy ratings etc will cause them to deviate strongly from any population average amounts calculated like above.

You also face a prospect of either reducing benefit paid to those who live in large households with obvious incentive effects.

thebman

Diarmuid wrote: »

I don't think that's correct. It's quite complex to calculate rental allowance but here are the maximums.For a single person in their own accom is €130pw in Dublin.

Oh I read somewhere it was 200 Eur a month max.

It should still just cover the rent and that is about it. People can relocate if they can't live on a reasonable rent allowance. I don't think it should go over a 100 euro a week anyway. If you were getting that (130 a week) and full dole, you'd be on easy street.

snubbleste

thebman wrote: »

Oh I read somewhere it was 200 Eur a month max.
It should still just cover the rent and that is about it. People can relocate if they can't live on a reasonable rent allowance. I don't think it should go over a 100 euro a week anyway. If you were getting that (130 a week) and full dole, you'd be on easy street.

It does not cover the rent. The maximum rent allowance levels are the maximum that can be charged, the tenant have to contribute a minimum of €18 a week towards it

mysterious

If your onsocial welfare payments and working partime? How much can you earn max. I thought it used to go by hours. I.e 20 hours max per week. Is this changed. If I get DA allowance or Dole? What is the max I can earn?

Danno

I think a large problem exists with landlords who overcharge rents to those they know are on social welfare as the landlords know that the state are footing the bill. Now, if a social welfare inspector can visit these premises and re-negotiate the rents paid, it could save a small fortune.
A situation could arise where... inspector visits house, saves €200 per month for the state. The inspector then sends information to the Department of the Environment about the premises that the STATE are more or less renting.
Another inspector goes out from the DOE and lists reccomended premises improvments (such as insulation) to be carried out. The landlord could qualify for tax relief on rents recieved to carry out these works. Another person (company putting in insulation) is kept in full time employment and there is less loss to the state coffers.

Joey the lips

So from reading all the posts here I have come to the opinion that all the users of this forum topic agree with the cut in welfare payments.?????? and possibly other users just are not bothered commenting which i presume is because they think the subject is not worth debating


That is very interesting. Because every single organisation including the SFA and the St Vincent de paul condemed it on the news yesterday. 2 talk shows on LMFM and RTE discussed it in detail. So I wonder as visitors to the economic formum are we all just giving opinions which I think is "Well everbody else is getting cutback so why shouldent they"

But what I fail to understand is. The social welfare is the last place we all end up when we loose our jobs. I consider it to be the lowest point in your life. I do not consider the ayment to be much and I have always objected to it and always will

I too believe it or not have an education in economics so my "Economics" logic says dont pay it at all. Let the worthless starve. Its not my problem

But my humanity logic says why is it that while these people are low we seem to want to kick them more. Why dont we spend resources on chasing social welfare cheats from those claiming disability and working for cash to those claiming deseration and having there partners living and bringing in a wage.

It really does seem that we are heartless towards these people and I am shocked. But I go with your opinion.

Bring on the 3% cut.....

swiss

I don't think it's a case of being heartless to people at all. I've been out of work before and it's an awful feeling as you are not doing anything productive with your day, with the resultant self esteem and other issues. I think people in such positions should be assisted, but assisted in such a way that they can help themselves obtain further employment. Whether this be through training schemes (perhaps with a less wasteful model than FAS though) or other programs.

There seems little doubt to me however that our benefits scheme is very generous. A case in point is the 'welfare tourism' that we see in border towns, where people from closeby northern towns travel to the republic on dole day to collect. With UK dole at about £56 if memory serves, and our own at over €200, why wouldn't they?

So it then becomes a question of what lifestyle the exchequer can support for people on the dole, and what the cost of that lifestyle is. This is not an easy question to answer, people have different cost estimates for items like food, clothing, rent, and so on. I know for example that I would struggle to live on €200 a week. Rent alone would take over half my income.

But if I were made redundant I would go live somewhere where the rent was cheaper. My lifestyle should meet my income, not the other way around. So if I was forced to, I think I could live on between 100 - 150 a week. It would be a miserly existence, but I think it could be done. And given the state of our public finances, it is something that may have to be done.

polts

If they cut dole by 3% its not that much really its around 6 euro they will be taking off it, but i think they should only cut the dole and not cut things like carers allowance & disability allowance.
I also see people on here worrying about respite care grant being taken away well let me tell you that the respite care grant was introduced b4 the boom so
taking it away is very very unlikely (a cut maybe) but not abolished.

Diarmuid

Joey the lips wrote: »

It really does seem that we are heartless towards these people and I am shocked. But I go with your opinion.

I feel that you still don't get the fundamental problem. WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY.

Last year we spent:
Social Welfare - €17b
Health - €15b
Education - €12b
Everything else - €12b
Total - €57b

The governments current estimates for 2009 income is €34b.

If you can balance the books some other way without cutting welfare (and everything else for that matter) we are all ears.

Skud

Diarmuid wrote: »

If you can balance the books some other way without cutting welfare (and everything else for that matter) we are all ears.

Reduce government spending on expenses. Biffo getting paid more than Barack Obama for gods sake without calculating what he gets extra a year. Pre-approve expenses, downgrade necessary travel from first class to coach, reduce the hotels, publicly force politicians to publish their spending and breakdown there of. Process refinement for necessary activities, reducing/removing irrelevant activities. Companies do this to survive, surely governments should have to also?

cavedave

Skud

Reduce government spending on expenses. Biffo getting paid more than Barack Obama for gods sake without calculating what he gets extra a year. Pre-approve expenses, downgrade necessary travel from first class to coach, reduce the hotels, publicly force politicians to publish their spending and breakdown there of. Process refinement for necessary activities, reducing/removing irrelevant activities. Companies do this to survive, surely governments should have to also?

Thats going to save 23 billion (when everything else costs 12 bn)? I agree with you that all these things need to happen btw.

Diarmuid

Skud wrote: »

Reduce government spending on expenses. Biffo getting paid more than Barack Obama for gods sake without calculating what he gets extra a year. Pre-approve expenses, downgrade necessary travel from first class to coach, reduce the hotels, publicly force politicians to publish their spending and breakdown there of. Process refinement for necessary activities, reducing/removing irrelevant activities. Companies do this to survive, surely governments should have to also?

I agree with your suggestions but I would guess that those savings would come to less than 1 % of the deficit. I don;'t think you appreciate the scale of the problems

Skud

Diarmuid wrote: »

I agree with your suggestions but I would guess that those savings would come to less than 1 % of the deficit. I don;'t think you appreciate the scale of the problems

I do, and I understand it wouldnt even begin to payback the deficit, I merely put it forward as a grand gesture .

But at least in implementing this it would make people less miserable, stop cuts elsewhere and reduce government spending in the long run. Process improvement would mean dead weights like the hse would improve efficiency and productiveness (could be at the expense of jobs).

The main problem with the whole thing (besides the country quickly going bankrupt) is that people have lost jobs, and those same people have been stuck to pay back the deficit while politicians continue on like it's the middle of the celtic tiger. My point is that those suggestions should have been done ages ago before the people have to pay back what their government has got them into to. This 3% suggested cut is another example of how the government aren't doing the right thing to help the country but merely making the situation worse and worse to the point now where we will be begging the other countries for their money.

Diarmuid

Skud wrote: »

My point is that those suggestions should have been done ages ago before the people have to pay back what their government has got them into to. This 3% suggested cut is another example of how the government aren't doing the right thing to help the country but merely making the situation worse and worse to the point now where we will be begging the other countries for their money.

I think this is where our view diverge. Sure our government pi55ed away the boom but they did with the approval of the majority of the Irish people. They inflated public sector expenditure on the backs of income from a bubble (that they helped inflate).
Now we are paying for those mistakes. That means cuts in wages/welfare/health expenditure/public service etc. There is no way to avoid this

rasper

While I agree that the current spend is unsustainable, I despise to see any of the so called social partners lecturing to us with the years of swill still stuck on their snouts, it is their fault that thousands are joining the dole queues every day. IBEC, FF, PD and the public sector unions bartered and spent and lived it up with the taxes colllected from the borrowings to finance a bubble and if had any concern about the good of the country would have raised their concerns about wasting money then.
Can't believe FF is still pushing the social partnership scam, god I can't wait for June

dresden8

Diarmuid wrote: »

I think this is where our view diverge. Sure our government pi55ed away the boom but they did with the approval of the majority of the Irish people.

http://www.rte.ie/news/elections2007/

Nope FF got 41.6%. A lot of people, including myself, believed Trevor Sargent would never lead the greens into coalition with FF. Bye bye Trev.

41.6% is not a majority. That FF got a majority is one of the lies that somehow has become an axiom.

old boy

cavedave wrote: »

The child one seems to be a big issue alright. How much does it cost to raise a child? Clothes, necessities.

cost of food at 80
light heat medical 20
bin, tv license etc 10
Transport and phone, cosmetics 30
rent 20 euro at least (according to snubbleste)
thats 160 a week.

If any of these are inaccurate or I'm missing something please correct the calculation

my bin charge is 360 euro for the year
my esb bill is 1000 for the year

Diarmuid

dresden8 wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/elections2007/

The damage was done a long time before 2007. I'm sure you'll point out that 48.1% is not a majority to which I will reply that in both cases more people voted for them than against and that majority governments are practically unheard of in multi party PR system.

old boy wrote:

my esb bill is 1000 for the year

Not if you lose your job. It's call cutting your costs.

cavedave

The average gas bill for a house is 915 a year (here).
The average ESB seems to be 822 (here). This is before recent reductions but it is a better figure then my previous guess. This is for a household. How much would the average individual spend?

thebman

Well I would say generally say if someone is home all day (obviously people do go outside etc... but for the most part they are more likely to be inside their homes during the day), they are going to inevitably end up using more electricity than someone who spends 8 hours a day in work.

==edit

It is just on BBC News that they are looking at putting up welfare over there because people can't survive. The channel had an interview with an old woman trying to get by on £20 a week for food. Price seem to be going up over there.

==edit 2
Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7982056.stm

Seems to be related to decrease in value of pound.

Diarmuid

thebman wrote: »

It is just on BBC News that they are looking at putting up welfare over there because people can't survive. The channel had an interview with an old woman trying to get by on £20 a week for food. Price seem to be going up over there.

What's welfare in the uk? £65/week or something like that . Pretty bleak.

Disease Ridden

I think the government could get more than 3% out of the unemployed to be honest. I'm unemployed myself and I know that if I really had to I could take a 8% cut in income ie. 16.30 quid less a week. I wouldnt take it lightly like but I could take it. It would simply mean cutting out nights out almost completely, with perhaps a visit to a mates house with a few cans once every few weeks and no drink bought in the pub, basically getting a full nights drinking with my mates for about 20 quid, taxi included!

Seriously, we all agree that we'll have to take pain to rectify the massive hole in the public finances but as soon as any hint of a reduced standard of living is pushed onto us we whinge whinge whinge. This IS the pain the government is talking about. Entertainment curtailed to the bone, food purchases closely monitered, shop in Lidl, getting rid of sky, no holidays even getting rid of telephone and television (to avoid Tv license) if needs be.
I'd say give up smoking aswell, but I know I'l get a backlash from the smokers who know how difficult it is!

Also, I think the christmas bonus should be halved. This wont hurt anybody in the short term and is equivalent to an extra hidden 1% taken off the unemployed.

1huge1

cavedave wrote: »

I have found cost of living estimates for students.

here puts cost of food at 70-100 per week

here
costs medical 13 euro a month on average (but students are young). Also you get a medical card after a while on welfare.

here says heat and light say € 57 per month

So thats about 120 a week for food, light, heat and medical. Clothes I have not counted. Transport + phone I have not counted. Various charges for bins and tv licence etc I have not counted. Accommodation I have not counted.

€70-€100 a week on food? I'm a student and thats crazy, these students need to stop shopping at spar and start hitting the likes of aldi. I never spend more than €35 on food in a week.