ALMOST 700,000 people still live in poverty despite more than a decade of prosperity and economic growth, a conference will hear today.
Cori Justice, part of the Conference of Religious of Ireland, says growing prosperity has not delivered infrastructure, services or wellbeing on the scale required.
At the conference, Fr Seán Healy and Sr Brigid Reynolds of Cori Justice will say the development model followed by policy-makers is fundamentally flawed and too focused on economic rather than social development.
They say many good developments have resulted from economic growth, although these have been paralleled by closely linked negative developments.
For example, 17 per cent of the population still live in poverty with incomes below €11,400 a year for a single person and €26,400 for a household of four.
They note that the number of jobs has almost doubled. However, the cost of seeing work defined increasingly as paid employment only has resulted in unpaid work, such as caring for children, older people and people with disabilities, becoming a residual category.
“Public policy has failed to address effectively the huge challenges posed by these developments in the new Ireland,” according to Fr Healy and Sr Reynolds. “A new approach is needed. A development model that focuses almost exclusively on economic growth as the key to increasing people’s wellbeing is doomed.”
They say economic development and social development are complementary and should be given equal priority.
“If this had been done during the celtic tiger years, we would now have the infrastructure and social services required to ensure every person in Ireland could live life with dignity,” they say.
At the conference, entitled Making Choices, choosing Futures – Ireland at a Crossroads, Cori Justice will outline a series of choices which should be taken to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past”.
These include moving towards a basic income system; recognising all work, not just paid employment; placing a strong emphasis on participation by all; promoting a “whole of health” approach and strengthening social capital and civil society.
Fr Healy said these values should be at the core of decision-making on public policy issues.
“The values that underpin public policy should be debated by all concerned before decisions are made. This is especially crucial at this time as Ireland decides how to use its wealth,” he said.
Today’s conference is the twentieth in a series of annual public policy conferences organised by Cori Justice since 1988.
It will be attended by more than 150 people from across the policy-making spectrum in Ireland and abroad.
