Charlie Weston: Near-sighted move defeats purpose of worker PRSI
You have to wonder what Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) is other than just another tax following the move in the Budget to fillet the benefits you get from it.
It is supposed to be a social insurance scheme with your contributions to it entitling you to a range of benefits administered by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
The benefits are determined by the PRSI class you are in. Most private sector workers pay at a rate of 4pc on all income up to €75,036. Their employers pay a punitive 10.75pc.
That is 14.75pc of a worker’s salary going into this social insurance fund.
But in the Budget it was announced that almost two million people covered by PRSI will no longer be entitled to free dental treatment or spectacles from next year.
Under the existing system, workers with sufficient PRSI payments can claim two free dental check-ups a year, a teethcleaning session and subsidies towards other treatments.
The €54m cost-cutting move means they will be entitled only to a free dental or eye exam from January, with all other benefits – except for hearing aids – abolished in 2010.
The entitlements to a free clean-and-polish or reduced rates for extractions and fillings will end in January.
The Irish Dental Association has argued that the dental healthcare scheme built up over 50 years had been effectively wiped out in the Budget. Opticians have been getting €44 from the State for spectacles.
This covers the full cost for those who just require a basic pair. If bifocals are needed for long and short sight it might be as high as €88.
These changes are more evidence that PRSI is now being used largely to fund unemployment payments. This means for those in work it has become just another Government revenue-raising exercise.
In the past few budgets the Government has raised the ceiling on PRSI. In the October 2008 Budget the ceiling went to €52,000, and to €75,036 in the April Budget of this year.
The idea of having a ceiling is because the benefits from PRSI were, up to now, limited. You can’t get more jobseekers’ benefit because you are paying more PRSI.
Now that the ceiling has been raised to ridiculous levels and the benefits have been decimated, it is high time the Government keeps its promise to reform the now-discredited PRSI system.
- Charlie Weston
