Punititive austerity is coming to N Ireland.

I read that a labour MP for Oldham writes that benefit sanctions are brutalising the poor. He has good grounds for this conviction, and they can be seen here . What sanctions and austerity have we here in northern Ireland, as yet nothing. Although we have been affected badly by the cost of living crisis and 'efficency savings' in our front line services. The commentator Newton Emmerson has said previously that there were no cuts in N Ireland, and technically he is right. Instead of cuts to services we have had efficiency savings, and some ring fenced budgets still have to make these savings, one particular budget that I know of that is ring fenced still has to make eighty million in efficiency savings. But back to benefit sanctions..

The first I saw of these benefit sanctions first hand was in the channel four programme benefits street, where the young couple were living off fifty pounds a week. The sanctions haven't reached us, and Sinn Fein is grand standing for electoral purposes, saying they are protecting the poor and the needy. The DUP on the right of the political spectrum, say they have got some very good guarantees that much of the harsher measures we see across the water will not affect N Ireland, and in one television programme, the former finance minister Sammy Wilson, let slip that around sixty million has been set aside to help people fight capita when benefits have not been awarded. Capita operate here rather than ATOS who operate mainly in Great Britian, but both serve the same purpose.

We haven't yet seen here the blossoming of food banks the way we have seen them mushroom in Britain and to a lesser extent in the Irish republic, where tomorrows papers report anti austerity protests turned violent, and that the recession there is to blame for up to 560 suicides.

Meacher outlines here the punitive measures of sanctions and how they affect people. I believe we will see this in N Ireland, after March when the welfare reform bill must be signed off on here, or hefty fines paid. Even if this bill is not signed off on in March, it will have to be signed off on soon, and the block grant we are given cannot buffer the poor and jobless in n Ireland from all of these harsh measures.

As N Ireland is so heavily dependent upon the tax payer the austerity measures will hit here hardest. With the black hole in the governments figures worse than thought, reported today by the FT, Osborne has promised some tough decisions on budget day in two weeks.

We are heading for this here in N Ireland and bread and butter issues are as usual being ignored by our politicians, instead they fight over the past and flegs even football scarves, they are truly fiddling while we head towards financial disaster for many families.