Minister for Social Affairs Séamus Brennan has reacted angrily to newspaper headlines yesterday which said that 50,000 more people in Ireland were living in poverty. The figure followed changes announced by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) on Monday in terms of how poverty is measured.
As a consequence the number of people in Ireland classified as living in consistent poverty for
2003 (the latest year for which figures are available) grew overnight from 270,000 (6.8 per cent)
to 320,000 (8 per cent) - an increase of 50,000.
Speaking yesterday in Dublin Castle at a conference organised by the Combat Poverty Agency,
the Minister underlined the Government's commitment to reducing poverty and said "the reality is that 250,000 people have been lifted out of deprivation and hardship within the last decade". Social welfare spending grew "from €7 billion to €14 billion" since 2000, he said.
It meant, in real terms, that "for every €3 the State will spend this year, €1 will go directly into
assisting those on welfare", he said. "All agree, the people involved in tackling poverty, that we are making an impact." In a comment on the ESRI change, he said he saw "a lot of merit in having one sensible and accurate measurement that clearly identifies the areas of real and consistent poverty".
He was dismissive of the concept of "relative poverty", favoured in most EU states. It
was, he told The Irish Times, "exactly what the word says - relative", and he recalled an
observation that "if Bill Gates moved to Ireland the relative poverty index would have to be
moved up. We are all poor relative to someone else."
In his address to the Mainstreaming Social Inclusion conference, the Minister said that "depending on
which survey results you use, the number of people who remain caught in the consistent poverty trap is somewhere between 80,000 and 220,000".
Poverty levels were "especially high amongst the 80,000 lone parents on welfare supports and their children. I am currently considering reforms in this area that are designed to deliver more enlightened social policies that would directly target and benefit tens of thousands of single parents and their children."
Director of Combat Poverty Helen Johnston welcomed the change by the ESRI into how poverty
is measured. She felt "a row over numbers was not a fruitful approach". "We have the highest economic growth in the EU, why not the lowest poverty levels?" she said.
