27 January 2005 Edition

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Poverty figures "expose government lies"

23% of the 26-County population are at risk of poverty, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) that shatter coalition government claims about the level of poverty in Ireland today. Children, pensioners, the disabled, ill and unemployed all registered high poverty figures in the new CSO Income and Living Conditions survey.

Sinn Féin TD and spokesperson on social welfare and community affairs Sean Crowe said that "this latest survey exposes as a lie the Government's claims on poverty".

Crowe also said, "While the Government was happy to bury its head in the sand, or worse still, wilfully ignore the levels of poverty in the country there are those of us who know only too well from our work in our communities that despite the so-called Celtic Tiger there are still a significant number of people living in consistent poverty".

So what did the CSO find? Well their survey of over 5,000 households found that 9.4% of households are what the Dublin Government describes as consistently poor. Previous figures had put this percentage at 5%.

The 23% figure is calculated by finding out how many households are living with income less than 60% of median income. The survey found that the average disposable income per household was €341 a week, and that nearly 23% of households in Ireland have to live on less than €185 a week.

Such a low income though doesn't make you poor in the eyes of the government, you have to fulfil other conditions also such as being without heating at some stage over the past year, have had no substantial meal for at least one day in the past two weeks due to lack of money. These criteria might make sense but what would low income households make of being asked did they have "two pairs of strong shoes", or were they "unable to afford a roast once a week".

There are also some other startling figures in the new survey. In particular the finding that 45% of people living alone have weekly incomes below €185, along with 42% of one person households.

Even using the flawed consistent poverty measure you find that 26.4% of the unemployed suffer consistent poverty, disabled or ill persons had a consistent poverty figure of 21%. Children living in one-person households registered a consistent poverty figure of 32%.

New Social Welfare minister Séamus Brennan declared that the survey was a message to the government to redouble its efforts to tackle poverty. As Sean Crowe said it will take more than a government image change to tackle poverty. This is a six monthly survey. Time will tell if Brennan can deliver.


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