A United Nations report which ranks Ireland at the bottom of its Human Poverty Index has been criticised by the Minister for Social Affairs Seamus Breannan as "inaccurate".
The Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisisreport was jointly launched by Mr Brennan and Minister of State for Irish Aid, Conor Lenihan.
Although Ireland has risen to fourth place on the UN Human Development Index, it was placed 17th out of 18 selected high income OECD countries.
But Mr Brennan said there were very serious question marks over the ranking.
"Some of the figures used in the report are more than 10 years out of date," he said. "Others in my view distort the reality because of Ireland's exceptional economic performace over several years how far we've come in tackling poverty."
Mr Brennan said that in less than a decade, more than 250,000 people had been taken out of poverty, while the report also failed to reflect the increases in social welfare payments over the past five years.
The Human Poverty Index calculates life expectancy, adult literacy, longterm unemployment and risk of Poverty (population below 50 per cent median income) to reach its final conclusions.
Mr Brennan said that the report's concentration on the "at risk of poverty" sector did not help the country's ranking. In Ireland, poverty is measured by looking at those in consistent poverty.
"In relation to the adult literacy measure, the figure shown for Ireland, at 22.6 per cent is more than 10 years old, " the Minister said. Funding for adult literacy measures has also significantly increased since 1997, rising from €1 million to €23 million.
Mr Brennan said the index could in ways distract from the need to focus funding and efforts in other areas to tackle the poverty issue.
However, he acknowledged that there had been no deliberate attempt to distort the figures.
The report concentrated on the importance of water, revealing that unclean weater and poor sanitation are responsible for killing some 1.8 million children each year.
The release of the UN report revealed some good news for Irish Aid, with the country placing in the top five donors in terms of the percentage share of bi-lateral aid allocated to water and sanitation.
"In 2006, Ireland has provided some 60,000 people with water and sanitation in Zambia," said Mr Lenihan. "Similar programmes are supported in Lesothom, South Africa and Mozambique."
"Ireland is clearly playing its part to address deficits in this area. We call on other donors to do likewise."
