THE Combat Poverty Agency (CPA) has unveiled its final annual report before it is subsumed into a government department, with its chairman admitting there was “uncertainty” over the move.

The Combat Poverty Agency has expressed its opposition to any cut in social welfare rates, saying it would only create new problems further down the road.

Threshold, the national housing organisation, has criticised the levy of €200 that will be imposed on non-principal private residences, announced in today’s Budget, saying that the levy will be paid by tenants.

Subsuming the Combat Poverty Agency into a Government department would destroy the watchdog’s independence and ability to carry out vital work, it was warned today.

TWENTY-SEVEN voluntary and community groups have rallied to the defence of the Combat Poverty Agency which is waiting to hear its fate after a ministerial review recommended it be scrapped as a cost-cutting measure.

THE board of Combat Poverty is to meet in an emergency session tomorrow to devise a survival plan amid further indications that the agency will be scrapped as a government cost-cutting measure.

ANTI-POVERTY groups have sharply criticised the new Government-backed national action plan to tackle poverty and social exclusion, launched yesterday by Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan.