UN figures for Ireland ‘outdated’

A UNITED Nations report that shows Ireland at the bottom of the poverty league is outdated and inaccurate, the Government claimed yesterday.

Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan dismissed the figures contained in the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report for 2006, and said literacy figures were 11 years old.

Only Norway, Iceland and Australia come ahead of Ireland for life expectancy, education and income levels. The nation has jumped four places from last year’s report.

However the country languishes at 17th out of the 18 selected high income OECD countries in the Human Poverty Index.

The ‘Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis’ dossier was jointly launched by Mr Brennan and Minister of State for Irish Aid, Conor Lenihan.

Mr Brennan said: “It is not an accurate reflection of an Ireland in which more than 250,000 people have been lifted out of poverty in less than a decade.”

He added: “In less than a decade more than 250,000 people, including 100,000 children, have been lifted out of deprivation and hardship.

The report fails to reflect the positive impact of increases of over 55% in social welfare payments in the past five years alone and the many other increases and improvements targeted at alleviating poverty.”

The Human Poverty Index reached its conclusions by calculating life expectancy (the probability of not surviving to age 60), adult literacy, long term unemployment and risk of poverty (population below 50% median income).

Mr Brennan said that such reports can cause confusion, distort real progress and be a distraction by sending the wrong signal to the public and policy makers who are determined to strengthen the measures now needed to eradicate poverty from 21st century Ireland.

“We have travelled some distance towards achieving that goal but there are still unacceptable levels of hardship and deprivation in Ireland and my emphasis now is on targeting those areas with increased payments, supports and services so that we can make poverty history.”

Ireland’s long-term unemployment rate is 1.4% lower than the figure used in the report and its 8.7% life expectancy rate is on a par with, or well ahead of the majority of countries surveyed.

Mr Brennan said that the 22.6 adult literacy measure for Ireland is more than ten years old.

The minister said that Government expenditure on adult literacy has increased from €1 million to 23 million since 1997.

The 2006 report also focuses on the importance of water. The Government’s support for water and sanitation projects tripled between 2000 and 2004.