A STEADY stream of people arrived at social welfare offices yesterday afternoon unaware of their closure due to the public sector industrial dispute.
Many who pushed the locked door of one of the main Dublin city centre offices at Tara Street said they would not have opposed the workers’ right to strike – if they had given notice.
“My daughter is coming up for an appointment this afternoon. I was here only yesterday and they never told me. They should have said. If they had said something I would be supporting them,” Patricia Tracey from Dublin said.
One particularly irate man, living in Dublin 4, who did not wish to give his name, said both the union leaders and the Government had no awareness of what it was like to live on social welfare payments.
“This strike is a national disgrace. I would put the lot of them on the rate of pay that I’m on for a month and see how they get on and, after the month, none of them could go back to salaries of more than €100,000. There should be no more of these €200,000, €250,000 salaries.”
The same man said he had attended the office to declare that he had worked two days this week.
“I have two children, I have to take any work I can, but I’m declaring it. I’m going to ask for travel allowance for today because it was a complete waste of my time.”
Carmen Rivera from Spain said her appointment to sign on was for after lunch yesterday, but she called in at 12.40pm to see if she could sign on early as she had a hospital appointment to attend.
“There was no notice. I was told I could only sign from 2pm to 3pm – but now it’s closed.”
A woman, who lives near the office but who did not wish to be named, said the unions had made a mistake in targeting unemployed people as part of their dispute.
“It’s different to not answering phones somewhere or not giving out passports. Doing this shows up that they have jobs and we don’t. But I suppose they don’t care – people just think they can do what they like.”
One woman in her twenties said it was her first time to sign on, and was worried about what would happen in relation to her payments.“I’m here now, there’s just no one to see that,” she said.
