DUP accused of ‘meaningless waffle' during discussion on social security debt recovery in Derry & Strabane

A presentation on social security debt recovery to Derry City and Strabane council’s Health and Community Committee saw SDLP councillor Rory Farrell accuse the DUP of spouting ‘empty words and meaningless waffle’ because it will not return to form an Executive.

The Ballyarnett councillor accused the DUP of supporting every issue discussed in the chamber and yet the party refuse to go back into government.

Following a council motion calling for a reduction in debt repayments, Leonora McLaughlin, Director of Pensions, Disability, Benefit Security & Debt, Julie Nelson, Deputy Director Benefit Security & Debt Management, Department for Communities and Liz McKenna, Debt Operation Senior Manager addressed the committee.

In terms of having a debt waived, Aontú councillor Emmet Doyle queried if there was a policy which determines what the department deems to be exceptional circumstances.

He said: “I have a fair list in my mind that I have dealt with that I would deem to be exceptional circumstances, what is your definition of what is an exceptional circumstance or an exceptional case?”

Ms McLaughlin responded: “In essence this is discretion, there is no set of criteria as such, no definitive range of circumstances that would mean that your social security debt would be waived.”

She continued: “Quite often it involves a health impact of the debt and we generally do ask for medical evidence if that was the case but where that is the case then we would look favourably where we can on waiving the debt. You would expect it to be in exceptional cases because we do use flexibility to kind of establish payments at a low level to suit the customer.”

Councillor Doyle referred to a constituent who was seeking Support for Mortgage Interest.

“Essentially what the customer wanted to do was to change the amount that was paid either to their bank or from their bank in regards to the scheme,” he said.

“I actually got a letter back from the department that said that they were unable to do that with no explanation.”

Explaining that the team at debt management come in at ‘the back of the process’, Liz McKenna, Debt Operation Senior Manager added: “With regards to Support for Mortgage Interest, there are two aspects to it, the benefit processing offices will be dealing with what you were talking about – the repayment terms and I’m assuming that’s where the response came from.

“I would be very keen to see that and see what we can do and look in at that individual case and liaise with the benefit processing offices. We do deal with Support for Mortgage Interest but it’s really for the sale, where there is going to be a sale of a property.”

People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin said: “I know that suspending debt recovery for people on benefits and facing tremendous hardships over the last year and a half would have been a difficult thing for the Department to do, but we as a council took the initiative of setting up an emergency hardship fund and that was extremely difficult for the council to do. We did it because of the failure of Stormont and Westminster to help people and that’s where the frustration comes.

“The thing about exceptional cases, this has been widely challenged because when we opened up our council hardship fund we had 5,500 people apply for it within the first six hours of the scheme and it had to be shut down on the first day and we were only going to be able to help 2,405 people.

“Hardship isn’t exceptional right now, it is widespread across our district for residents here, especially for people who are in receipt of benefits and are on Universal Credit.”

Urging anyone getting into debt to reach out and support the avenues available, Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson commented: “I know there is a cost of living emergency, there’s a crisis, it’s been well rehearsed around the challenges that individual families, businesses and ourselves as a council are facing but there is nowhere those challenges are more profound or stark than the households who are relying on benefits.”

Welcoming the presentation, DUP Alderman Maurice Devenney stated: “We can’t get past the fact that before Covid there were financial pressures but I think the pandemic has exacerbated that situation.”

Speaking about the benefits of pausing debt recovery and how it would provide some form of relief and comfort to people on the lowest incomes in society as they try to navigate the cost of living crisis, SDLP councillor Rory Farrell said: “We note that one of the main obstacles to debt recovery is that it needs Executive approval and we don’t have an Executive because the DUP are refusing to go to work.

“As per every single issue that we debate in the chamber the DUP say they support it. They support the pausing of debt recovery but they don’t support it enough to go back to work and form a government so as usual from the DUP it’s empty words and meaningless waffle,” he claimed.

Saying she understood stakeholders’ frustrations, Director of Pensions, Ms McLaughlin commented: “Social security is a devolved matter but the reality is we use DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) systems so we are heavily constrained. Also there is an issue for the Executive when the Executive is sitting that a more lenient system of social security or debt recovery in Northern Ireland compared with what happens in DWP introduces the risk of penalty to the Northern Ireland block. As is often said, you can make those changes but you will have to pay for them.”

Gillian Anderson

Local Democracy Reporter