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offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link BREAKING: Conservative MP Danny Kruger Defects to Reform Mon Sep 15, 2025 11:36 | Will Jones
Conservative MP Danny Kruger has defected to Reform UK to head up the party?s Preparing for Government policy unit ? the first sitting Tory MP to defect.
The post BREAKING: Conservative MP Danny Kruger Defects to Reform appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Charlie Kirk?s Murder and the Web of Hate Mon Sep 15, 2025 11:00 | Sallust
Charlie Kirk's murder wasn't just the work of one man but the toxic brew of cancel culture, radical ideology and online mobs, says Nick Cater in the Australian. It's a chilling glimpse of how violence is being normalised.
The post Charlie Kirk?s Murder and the Web of Hate appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Kemi Badenoch Vows to Defend British Values in Battle Over Free Speech Mon Sep 15, 2025 09:00 | Toby Young
Kemi Badenoch has launched a commission to review Britain?s free speech laws in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination and Graham Linehan's arrest ? and she's asked Toby Young, the Free Speech Union head, to lead it.
The post Kemi Badenoch Vows to Defend British Values in Battle Over Free Speech appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Four Rival Paradigms Shaping the Coming Age Mon Sep 15, 2025 07:00 | James Alexander
Four rival paradigms ? China, Islam, Christianity and Liberalism ? are shaping the world in very different ways, says James Alexander. But which one will come out on top?
The post The Four Rival Paradigms Shaping the Coming Age appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Mon Sep 15, 2025 00:57 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

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Rent Allowance-More Stealth Cuts?

category national | public consultation / irish social forum | other press author Sunday September 20, 2009 11:08author by Greg T - None (Independent left) Report this post to the editors

Highlighting recent changes to the rent supplement scheme as well as other disturbing developments.

As if June's cut wasn't enough, ( see: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94053 ) waiting period of up to several months for rent allowance assessment to be completed are going to result from recent changes to the rent supplement scheme . This development may make things next to impossible for any newly unemployed without significant savings, in the meantime more and more people are undoubtedly going to become homeless.
http://www.corkindependent.com/local-news/local-news/co...nces/
(It's nice to see a Labour TD taking action on this issue). As if that isn't worrying enough, just been told by someone I know (coincidentally also in County Cork), that new Rent Allowance claims are not being processed at all in her area. This person was basically informed (informally) that her claim was a waste of time and that due to staff shortages new applications will not get seen to. Sounds suspiciously like yet another stealth on the sly cut. Meanwhile the NAMA plans to bailout the rich continue, gombeen politics as usual. If anyone else knows similar stories they need to be highlighted immediately. Affected people need to kick up a fuss or they will be (conveniently) forgotten.

Related Link: http://www.corkindependent.com/local-news/local-news/concern-about-rent-allowances/
author by shoegirlpublication date Mon Sep 21, 2009 17:35author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Isn't the whole point of rent allowance so that people in EXISTING rented accomodation are subsidised, not so that people who are currently receiving a social welfare payment can choose to change their existing accomodation at a whim?

That said, the changes are harsh on anybody who otherwise would be facing the scenario of having no roof under their head - for example if their landlord is selling up or if the family home is no longer a safe place for them.

Forcing low income households into the market sector should never have been a solution in the first place - accomodation should have been made available via social housing, not via giving guaranteed profits to market landlords at obscene overpriced rates and pushing up demand artificially for private rented property through engineering artificial shortages in social housing through non-provision. (But then spending billions on private sector rents instead? Doesn't even make financial sense if you take into account that the cost of housing rent subsidised households over the last 10 years has probably already far exceeded the cost of actually providing them with permanent council or housing association homes?)

The current policy of locking in this form of "non-provision" by long term leasing from private landlords is doing nothing more than subsidizing the worst kind of profiteering landlords.

 
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