Whatever happened to ‘charity begins at home’?
Wednesday 13th August 2008, 3:00PM BST.
From Jane Churchill.
ON Wednesday 6 August I read with dismay about the plight of Stephen Coleman, and by taking one look at the picture of him it was blatantly obvious that he is not ‘swinging the lead’.
While understanding that there are rules and regulations in place for the claiming of sickness benefit, surely it should be taken into account how many years somebody has paid contributions when an accident such as this occurs, which can cause severe hardship at a time of extreme stress.
Bearing in mind that this man has not sponged off the States and has paid social security for years, and that we are talking of £140 a week to ensure that this one family does not have to suffer undue hardship, imagine my shock when turning to page 10 on the same evening and seeing the suggestion that the budget for Jersey overseas aid should increase from £7 million to £24 million.
While agreeing that the work done by the many volunteers is fantastic, whatever happened to ‘charity begins at home’? The maths are quite easy, and if you divide £24 million by the population of what we have been told is 90,000, it works out that each member of Jersey’s population, man, woman and child would be paying £266.66 per annum to overseas aid.
We as taxpayers do not get a choice as to whether we contribute to overseas aid, as
this is decided for us by our States Members – the same States Members who, when they were asked to vote on cutting the budget for overseas aid to boost local education voted by two-thirds against it.
The children of Jersey are the future of this Island, and as such deserve the best possible education. I know that as a taxpayer, and I feel that many other taxpayers on this Island would prefer for Mr Coleman to receive his £140 per week rather than have the money spent somewhere else outside the Island.
The other point to bear in mind is that GST has just been introduced because we need more money in the coffers, which in turn has caused most of us to tighten our belts, but it would seem that in typical States fashion this has been forgotten and rather than spend this money at home, helping the likes of Mr Coleman and his family here in Jersey, the States feel that as quickly as it comes in somebody or somewhere else not connected or contributing to Jersey should benefit from the hardship that the taxes and the regulations on the Island cause to its population.
5 Les Carrières,
Chemin des Maltières,
Grouville.
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Well said, however politicians think differently! They live mostly in cloud cuckoo land where it is simpler and cheap to flood the island with people from other lands. I also believe that “The children of Jersey” should be the future of this Island, but one has to also be aware that whatever decent folk vote for politicians do what they like, irrespective of normality or common sense.
I think the case of Stephen Coleman deserves a lot of media attention as to how out of touch politicians and their brethren are.
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While I feel for Mr. Coleman’s situation, the fact remains that he failed for whatever reason to make a social security payment.
I have used the same insurance company for a number of years, but I am positive that should I fail to pay a premium, and then have need to claim, the insurance company will not take my previous years payments into consideration.
There may well be other people in a similar situation to Mr. Coleman (present and past), should Social Security pay him, they would need to make back payments to everyone else. It would cost a fortune, and perhaps mean an increase in contributions for others.
If you don’t pay in, you don’t get the benefit. I think that is an entirely fair system.
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Re:Charity begins at home,Stephen Coleman and his
family must be regarded as an exceptional case and it is the duty of the relevant States Members
to ensure that common sense and not beaurocratic
bungling comes to the fore.
As for increasing Overseas Aid, wake up and stop throwing taxpayers money away. Due to the fact that I have lived in Africa since 1989, I say to
you and those high profile idiots Geldof and Bono
it is very easy to pray on the heartstrings of the people on the street with pictures and videos of suffering. Instead they should be putting pressure on the Governments of these poor countries to reduce their corruption, if
reduced only by 30% this would be more money than donated by charities worldwide and they could still hoard away 70% to finance their elaborate lifestyles ala Mugabe,MOI,Idi Amin,
and a host of others. Tony Coutanche Cape Town.
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Well said Tony Coutanche, I agree with you entirely.
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Why is it that every time bureaucracy commits an injustice there is always someone to say “we should not create a precedent / everyone in the past who has been in this situation will jump on the bandwagon” and thus nothing is ever done to help the person on the receiving end of the hardship caused?
This is Jersey, not an inflexible insurance company standing by its documented regulations and the powers that be should be able to exercise a certain amount of discretion. They certainly keep all the pension contributions from everyone unfortunate enough to expire before they reach pensionable age, thus achieving 100% profit.
So what if Mr Coleman missed one payment – it seems as though in Jersey nowadays (unlike under the former Parish Welfare system) there is no leeway for simply making a mistake.
Give him his money and let him get on with his life. I wish you the best of luck Mr Coleman.
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The difference between social security and an insurance company is that one is a system which the public are obliged to pay into and is for the welfare of the public. An insurance premium is a purely private contract that a person has an option to pay into and a clause of that contract will deal with the consequences of a missed payment. If a person has paid social security for 10 years misses one payment and then pays for a further 10 years then should be entitled to some benefit based on either period of payment or given the option to make good that one payment.
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hear hear well said that man thank you Tony Coutanche I agree with you 100% lets hope every one will vote this year and hopefully we may see some changes to our lovely island but alas I feel sure that it will be the same old same old ! hopefully though I may be proved wronge ! I live in hope………..
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