Tiger’s rise equals ‘social downfall’

TAX policies which helped develop the Celtic Tiger economy have made Irish people poorer, sicker and more stressed, it was claimed yesterday.

Pro-growth tax strategies were put in place by the Government deliberately even though it knew they would increase the gap between rich and poor, according to Dr Elizabeth Cullen.

She said the move towards American levels of inequality was “no accident but deliberate Government policy” as the Tánaiste and former Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment has made no secret of her ‘Boston rather than Berlin’ political leanings.

At the launch yesterday of the academic review Growth - The Celtic Cancer, Dr Cullen accused the Government of prioritising economic growth over citizens’ welfare.

“They sacrificed the health of the people to improve the health of the economy. I was shocked by the research,” she said.

In the review, Dr Cullen claims that in spite of a doubling in the average income between 1989 and 2002:

Levels of relative poverty doubled from 6% in 1994 to 12.9% in 2001. Relative poverty is defined as living on such a low income that it is impossible for a person to achieve the average standard of living of other people.

The number of children living in relative poverty increased from 9.4% in 1994 to 14.2% in 2001.

A 2001 survey of 1,000 Irish found that 73% of respondents found life more stressful than five years ago.

Only 30% of people now report themselves happy with their lives.

33% of men surveyed believed they had little control over their lives and 4% had already planned their suicides.

From 1993 to 1999, male suicide increased from 14 to 23 deaths per 100,000 of population.

Low birth weights rose by 20% between 1993 and 1999 - an accepted indicator of deprivation.

Mortality rates are now worse than the EU average for almost all diseases including cancer, heart disease and suicide.

Poverty in old age has risen from 2.8% to 18.2%.

Between 1994 and 2002, incomes rose by 73%, but house prices rose by 250% and by 300% in Dublin.

Dr Cullen, a medical doctor and member of the Irish Doctors’ Environmental Association (IDEA), blamed the widening gap on tax cuts for the rich, a reliance on national wage agreements and a slower rise in social welfare payments compared to average incomes - all of which helped create the Celtic Tiger economy, she said.