Unemployed Man Is Refused Raise By Social Welfare Dept For Third Time In Six Years

UNEMPLOYED sports critic Alan Deegan was refused a ‘raise’ by the Social Welfare Department, even though he has been with them for six whole years.

The 27-year-old said this was the third time he had been turned down by the group, since signing up with them in 2008.

Mr. Deegan claimed he was laughed at by a supervisor when he made the first request in 2010: “At that stage I was already with them two years. I thought it would be a good time to ask like!”

“I never missed one signing on day. I always dropped in whatever forms they needed. There shouldn’t have been a problem with me getting an extra few quid.

“But when I told the supervisor what I wanted he just laughed at me and told me to get out of his f**king office.”

“I have never been so humiliated in all my life.” said the emotional father of one.

The county Kilkenny man said he could not even face his missus with the bad news.

“I just went straight to the pub. What else could I do? I couldn’t bare to tell her.”

Mr Deegan is one of the many hundreds of people who have not received a raise from the social welfare Dept in the last six years, leaving some unfortunate families with no other option but to find work in supermarkets and factories.

The minister for Social Protection Joan Bruton said the social welfare department cannot give ‘a raise’ to the long term unemployed, and that the idea of rewarding people for not looking for work is ludicrous.

Mr. Deegan later retaliated by saying: “Unemployed people need incentives to keep on signing every month.”

“It’s time unemployed people stood up to the social welfare system and threatened strike action.