Jobs boom ‘reduced child poverty’

THE number of children with unemployed parents dropped by two-thirds at the height of the Celtic Tiger, a survey revealed yesterday.

During that time, the number of children living in jobless households fell from 27% to 9%, according to the ESRI Work-Poor Households report.

The report's author Dr Helen Russell said the figures were good news for child poverty trends.

"There is an accepted link between unemployment and poverty and this survey shows that the number of children living in poverty dropped by two-thirds during the Celtic Tiger boom," Dr Russell said.

The report also showed the number of households where all the adults were unemployed dropped to less than 14% between 1994 and 2000.

Dr Russell said the figures in the report were probably still representative.

"We believe that all these figures have remained pretty stable in the last four years because there has been no major increase in the level of unemployment," she said.

Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan welcomed the findings of the independent ESRI report.

She said it highlighted the importance of employment as a route out of poverty.

"This has been a cornerstone of the National Anti-Poverty Strategy since 1997 and the report shows the significant progress which has been made in this regard," Ms Coughlan said.

But the Society of St Vincent de Paul said yesterday that the huge increase in calls to them over the past four years would indicated that conditions have not improved for the unemployed and those on low income.

"The amount of cash we gave out was up 12% and there was a 7% increase in the amount of food we gave out at the end of 2002 and this tells its own story," Society of St Vincent de Paul national secretary Columba Faulkner said.

However, the ESRI study did find that more vulnerable sectors of society were more likely to be poor.

It found the households most at risk of work-poverty were headed by the elderly, lone parents, people with chronic health problems, the disabled or unqualified and unskilled people.

"This is because they did not have the opportunity to retrain or the necessary skills to take advantage of the Celtic Tiger boom," Dr Russell said.

And these groups are also more likely to be persistently poor to have no-one in the house who has worked for three or more years, she said.