170,000 children in poverty, claims agency

ALMOST 170,000 children live in poverty, with one in 16 lacking basic necessities such as food, clothes and heating.

Combat Poverty, the statutory organisation dedicated to eliminating poverty, questioned the Government's record on social inclusion after revealing the statistics in its annual report yesterday.

The agency defines poverty as having an income of less than €172 per adult per week, plus inability to afford sufficient hot meals, warm clothing and household heating.

On this definition:

5.5% of all households, some 71,000, were in poverty and many more existed on low incomes.

6% of children in the survey, around 170,000, live in poverty, while some 250,000 are members of low-income families.

This was an improvement on previous years but the way poverty is measured by the agency has changed. If the old measurement, based on half the average national income, was used, 22% of families would be in poverty compared to 15% in 1994.

Combat Poverty chairman Brian Duncan said it was also important to take into account access to public services such as housing, healthcare, education and public transport.

He said the agency's pre-budget submission stressed the need for the Government to strive for a wider availability of high-standard services to prevent the kind of social exclusion that fed into the poverty cycle.

The agency also found new forms of poverty emerging among different groups including minimum wage workers, families coping with disability, an increasing number of homeless families, particularly women and children, members of ethnic minorities and the Travelling community.

"Progress has certainly been made but it has not been enough," said agency director" Helen Johnston. She presented a list of demands to the Government, including an increase in the minimum weekly social welfare payment to €150, child benefit to rise to €150 a month and expansion of the school meal scheme.

The agency is also calling for more social housing and childcare, wider eligibility for the medical card and expansion of schemes to tackle early school-leaving and a cost of disability payment.

Ms Johnston said these schemes should not be allowed suffer in the upcoming budget despite the belt-tightening signalled by the Government.

She also called on the Government to stop cutting community employment places and warned against privatisation of services like bin collections because of the difficulty of ensuring waiver schemes for those on low incomes once the service was gone from public control.