Two experts have pilloried a dire article from a prominent columnist, who — without evidence — suggested the north of Ireland is filled with people dishonestly claimig PIP disability benefits.
Academics Ciara Fitzpatrick and Anne Devlin were responding to a recent column by Newton Emerson in the Irish News, which shamefully allowed their outlet to be used as a platform for unsubstantiated claims about people claiming Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Emerson based his column on an incoherent rant by clownish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor Darryl Wilson.
In it, Wilson blustered about the 230,000 people currently claiming PIP in the Six Counties. He alleged that:
…you and I both know there are people who know exactly how to work and to defraud the system and I’m not convinced the suspected fraud figures are anywhere near accurate.
PIP — Billionaires are the real thieves
Who needs actual evidence when you can cite the renowned scholarly source of “you and I”? Wilson went on to rave about a “fraudulent mess”, “fraudulent claimants” and bemoaned people who “exploit…compassion”. The last point piggybacks off the current trend for plutocrats to lament “suicidal empathy“, as they wage a war against kindness.
Undermining empathy, and thus solidarity, is key for billionaires to divide and rule the populations they lord it over. Distracted by infighting, we don’t recognise the realact of massive theft, which is that carried out by billionaires.
Not content with underpaying their workers and thereby hoovering up a massively unfair share of profits, billionaires use every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. As tax expert Richard Murphy points out:
…wealthy people can pay a smaller proportion of their income in tax than millions of people who work for a living.
That is not an accident. Wealth is taxed differently from work.
Workers pay income tax and National Insurance. They then pay VAT when they spend. Wealthy people can instead turn income into capital gains, retain profits inside private companies, use offshore structures, transfer assets between generations, and they also spend a smaller proportion of their income on items subject to VAT.
The result is a tax system that helps create and preserve wealth while imposing a disproportionate burden on ordinary households.
This sort of thing didn’t register for Emerson, who laughably described Wilson as “brave” for producing his PIP rant. Punching down at disabled people requires the same amount of courage as bashing asylum seekers or calling for more war – i.e. none. Doing any of these things is virtually cost free politically, and will see you praised by a lamentable media commentariat of which Emerson is part.
The Irish News columnist hallucinated an enormous “burden” of “unjustified claims” for disability benefits, without citing any source for this fiction. In response, senior lecturer at Ulster University Ciara Fitzpatrick and research officer in labour economics Anne Devlin responded:
The PIP system is a gruelling endeavour and is not an entitlement that claimants can simply sign on to. It requires the completion of a 20 plus page application with the onus on the applicant to provide detailed information about how their disability affects them, with additional evidence required.
Cowardly Emerson ignores conflict’s role in north of Ireland disability
The Canaryhas previously described how:
…PIP assessments were frequently “dehumanising”, “degrading” and “stressful” for claimants.
The academics also highlighted how the high figures for PIP claims in the north of Ireland are a legacy of the decades-long conflict that took place in the region:
Newton Emerson has completely ignored the context of hardship and suffering in which people require support. The long tail of the conflict continues to have an inevitable impact on our people. Research finds that older adults in NI who experienced the most intense periods of the conflict are around 21 percentage points more likely to be claiming disability benefits than those who did not experience the conflict to the same extent.
Moreover, there is a direct link between exposure to the conflict and mental ill health as well as tentative evidence of a relationship between conflict exposure and subsequent cancer diagnosis. Research by the NI Assembly highlights that mental health conditions are the most common reason for PIP claims – accounting for 45 per cent of cases.
Emerson concluded by saying that:
…the UK’s absurd disability benefits system could lose nationalism a border poll – on both sides of the border.
This is based on a claim that voters in the north would fear loss of a supposedly more generous benefits system, whereas voters in the south would reject having to pay for this additional cost. Fitzpatrick and Devlin responded by pointing out that the south of Ireland and Britain’s policies on disability benefits are diverging in a manner opposite to what Emerson suggests.
They highlight the Irish government’s planned introduction of an Annual Cost of Disability Support Payment, which has been cautiously welcomed by the Disability Federation of Ireland. Meanwhile, in Britain, Fitzpatrick and Devlin cite how:
Reform announced that should they enter government, they would reserve PIP for only the most significantly disabled, indicating that those with mental health conditions would be prevented from entitlement.
Ultimately, Emerson has shown himself to be another cowardly commentator happy to punch down at disabled people, in order to squeeze back what would be mere pennies in the context of the overall budget. The real savings could be found by ending wasteful spending on Big Death, and reforming an economic system that allows a handful of people to hoard wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, while those in dire need endure PIP humiliation rituals for a pittance.
Featured image via the Canary
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