Rural poverty going unnoticed, conference hears
The claim was made at the opening of the two-day Irish Rural Link (IRL) conference in Killala, Co Mayo, yesterday
Delegates heard that isolation can have serious psychological effects and that suicide rates in rural areas can be up to 25% greater than in Dublin.
IRL chief executive Seamus Boland called for the urgent development of a three-pronged strategy for providing jobs, training and services in rural areas.
Otherwise, rural families risk being caught in poverty traps for decades to come while urban areas benefit from economic recovery, he said.
“Rural poverty is more hidden and dispersed with isolation, limited job opportunities, lack of transport and distance from services all contributing,” Mr Boland noted.
He also said rural areas experience higher levels of child poverty and there is some evidence that benefit take-up rates are lower.
This is due to less access to information about public benefit entitlement, a culture of self-reliance, and the lack of anonymity in collecting benefits.
“Even in the Celtic tiger years rural people were asset rich but cash poor and were ‘site-harvesting’ where they sold sites to survive.
“This was unsustainable and the collapse of the property market brought this to an abrupt end,” he said.
Mr Boland said having a job is one of the main safeguards against poverty and exclusion but unemployment in the more rural counties is running above that in the cities.
“Off-farm income in sectors such as construction was vital for farm families and thousands of these jobs have been lost,” he said.
Four winners of the IRL National Rural Awards sponsored by Career Decisions, a Limerick-based career mentoring and coaching company, were presented at the conference dinner last night.
They are Glinsk Community Co-op, Co Galway, Bonane Community Co-op, Kenmare, Co Kerry, Third Age Foundation, Summerhill, Co Meath and Kenagh Co-op, Co Longford.
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