One in five children lives in poverty - report

Nearly one-fifth of children in Ireland live in income poverty for five years or more, a new report has claimed.

A report for the Combat Poverty Agency tracked families over eight years and found that a further 9 per cent of children live in the more serious form of "consistent" poverty, where they are deprived of basic necessities in their lives.

Day in, Day Out - Understanding the Dynamics of Child Povertysays that child poverty persists and continues to be "a serious problem", despite Ireland's unprecedented economic growth.

The report finds that child poverty affects children's health, their educational achievement, their job prospects and their life expectancy.

It found that children can move "in and out" of poverty and that the duration of poverty is affected by household circumstances, including the employment, educational and health status of the parents and by the number of children in the household.

"The more children the household contained, the lower was the probability of exiting poverty," the report states. This suggested that children have a "direct impact" on the risk of poverty.

Children may also have an indirect effect on the likelihood of escaping poverty by influencing their parents' working situation, the report notes.

"Most obviously, women may be less likely to be in work if they have young children, particularly if childcare is expensive or hard to obtain."

Helen Johnston

In addition, very few children in the study who had two parents or partners present and employed when they were first observed experienced recurrent or consistent poverty. Where neither partner was employed initially, some 60 per cent experienced persistent income poverty.

The Combat Poverty Agency, which commissioned the report from the ESRI, said there was no single solution to the problem.

"The response needs to be broader than simply providing child income support. Increased Government funding in this area is having an impact, but investment must be complemented by a multi-dimensional approach if real success is to be achieved," said Combat Poverty director Helen Johnston.

Ms Johnston said getting a parent in a two-parent household into work was one of the most effective ways to end child poverty and called for it to be made a policy priority.

"Measures to ease the transition from welfare to work, such as tapered income supports, employment and education supports and accessible and affordable childcare are essential," she said.

"We have also determined that education is a crucial factor in preventing the inter-generational transmission of child poverty, so early childhood care and education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds is imperative."

Minister for Social Affairs Seamus Brennan, who addressed the Combat Poverty event in Dublin today, said: "Really significant progress" had been made in tackling child poverty in the past seven to 10 years. And there had also been progress since 2001, the point at which the ESRI study ceased, he said.

"Whether we now have 65,000, or more or less, remaining at risk of poverty can be debated, but the reality is that we have an extremely urgent task and that is to concentrate all our efforts on ending for good the unacceptable face of child poverty in 21st century Ireland," he said.