Labour pledges to spend €3.5bn on poverty

The Labour Party today pledged to spend €3.5 billion to tackle the country's poverty blackspots if elected.

Under its Fair Dealproposals, the party says it would commit at least 5 per cent of the National Development Plan to funding initiatives to help tackle poverty.

The plan focuses heavily on education to deal with child poverty, keep track of early school leavers and tackle high rates of unemployment in disadvantaged areas.

Training schemes for 16 to 18 year-olds are ear marked for improvement, while school class sizes for the under-nines will be reduced.

If implemented, the plan would also force those between the ages of 16 and 18 who left school early to register with the National Education Welfare Service.

"We are declaring war on poverty, and in particular on child poverty," deputy leader Liz McManus said.

The party said it had no plans to "reinvent the wheel", but promised to build on the preparatory work and plans already in place.

"One of the most striking features of poverty in Ireland is its intergenerational nature," Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said.

"The poor are the children of the poor, and the parents of the poor. Poverty and inequality are still being passed on from one generation to the next, particularly through educational disadvantage."

The Labour leader criticised the Government for its failure to deliver on the promises made by the Rapid programme, designed to help those in the poorer areas of Ireland.

He said that after communities had put large amounts of work into the plans, the plans were abandoned. Instead, he claimed, any Government spending can now be labelled "Rapid", and the programme was an "empty shell".

Under Fair Deal, the rapid programme would be replaced and an area-based initiative put in place instead.

Mr Rabbitte said the plan was part of the Labour Party's core principal of tackling inequality.

"There is certainly no justification in modern-day Ireland for the extent of consistent poverty that is still with us," he said.

He added that while it was naive to think that poverty could be completely eradicated, the plans could certainly make an impact on it.