23 September 2004 Edition
Anti-Poverty Conference in West Belfast
BY LAURA FRIEL
Una Gillespie of the West Belfast Economic Forum
West Belfast Economic Forum and the Anti-Poverty Network hosted a major conference on poverty in West Belfast last week. Bringing together leading academics, voluntary sector activists and political lobbyists, the conference aimed to identify the causes of poverty and debate proposals for the creation of an anti-poverty strategy.
Speakers addressing the conference included Mike Tomlinson from the School of Sociology and Social Policy at Queens, Fintan Farrell, Director of the European Anti Poverty Network, Paddy Hillyard, senior lecturer in social policy at Jordanstown and Tracey O'Neill, a senior researcher with Combat Poverty Agency Ireland.
Welcoming the initiative, West Belfast MLA and Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said he looked forward to working with the community and voluntary sector in their efforts to eradicate poverty and inequality and building towards an Ireland of equals.
"West Belfast is the most deprived electoral constituency in the North of Ireland and any anti-poverty strategy must be seen to impact directly and tangibly on the everyday lives of people," said Adams.
"Child poverty is endemic in the North. This is something that should not be allowed to exist. Strategies that have been put in place ostensibly to tackle poverty and deprivation have failed and failed miserably. Ten years of Targeting Social Need policies have failed to make a dent in the appaling statistics on poverty, deprivation and inequality."
Una Gillespie of the WBEF said that Targeting Social Need had been a shameful failure. Earlier this year, the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister (OFDFM) launched a consultative document, "Towards an Anti Poverty Strategy, New TSN the way forward". "This 'new' New TSN is the third time we have been round the block in the last decade," said Una.
"When it was introduced the Targeting Social Need policy was intended to be the complementary policy to fair employment aimed at reducing the unemployment differential between Catholic and Protestants within the Northern state. At the time the differential stood at Catholics being 2.5 times more likely than Protestants to be unemployed. This now stands at twice as likely. Clearly there has been fundamental failures in the policy," said Una.
Key weaknesses identified by many TSN critics include, the lack of clear targets, timetables or budgets attached to delivery, the absence of mechanisms to monitor the direct impact of TSN and the lack of new initiatives and resources.
The New TSN policy was evaluated in 2000 by Deloitte and Touche for the OFDFM. "It was the first time people in the communities had been in a position to get an overall picture of what is happening with TSN and see if it is making an impact," said Una. "It makes bitterly disappointing reading."
Failed to impact
According to the British Government's own report, TSN has failed to impact on a range of key indicators of poverty and inequality. The proportion of children living in workless households, more of who live in households whose head is a Catholic, has remained the same.
The proportion of school leavers achieving no qualifications has remained the same. Those in this category are higher amongst those entitled to free school meals and in Catholic managed schools. The proportion of children achieving no GCSEs has increased as is higher in Catholic managed schools.
The proportion of working age adults who are unemployed, higher for Catholics, has remained the same. The proportion of working age adults living in workless household, higher for Catholics, has increased. The proportion of economically active working age people who are long-term unemployed has remained the same.
"On the basis of such clear evidence that TSN has failed in the past, do the new proposals of TSN III learn from these failures," asked Una. "It clearly does not.
"TSN is failing all of those people in society that it was supposed to help but it is disproportionably failing Catholics," said Una. "There is a clear commitment within the Good Friday Agreement and in the Programme for Government to tackle poverty and inequality. The development of an effective anti-poverty strategy is an imperative."