Poverty agency’s crisis meeting

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.

Social Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin has received recommendations from a steering group in the Office for Social Inclusion (OSI), which is based in her own department, that the agency should be subsumed into that office. However, the agency, which advises the Government on how to tackle poverty, has often been critical of government policy and says it must remain a separate entity if it is to retain its independence.

Combat Poverty chairman Brian Duncan said the agency had written to Ms Hanafin, urging her to reject the steering group’s recommendations which, he said, would be a “hugely retrograde” step.

“The board is of the view that the placement of Combat Poverty into OSI would in real terms mean the effective abolition of the agency, as defined under the 1986 act that provided for its establishment and defined its remit,” he said.

“In the current climate of increasing unemployment and growing numbers at risk of poverty, the agency has a crucial role to play in ensuring that anti-poverty policies are prioritised and effectively implemented.”

Mr Duncan said the board would finalise a range of alternative options to present to the minister.

Labour backed the agency’s call to be spared the axe. Party social affairs spokes-person Roisín Shortall said: “Rather than providing an independent assessment of government policy on poverty, it would simply become another mouthpiece for the minister.”

A spokeswoman for the minister said no decision had been made on the future of Combat Poverty.

“The minister has received the review and is considering its recommendations,” she said.