40,000 more children fall into poverty since 2010

THE number of children estimated to be living in consistent poverty may have risen by as much as 40,000, Barnardos has estimated.

The children’s charity launched its Children’s Budget yesterday, appealing to the Government not to make matters worse for the thousands of families already struggling with reduced means.

Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay said last year’s Budget reduced annual disposable income by between €1,900 and €3,500 for families on low incomes, and that the same families were being targeted by repeated cuts in other areas such as health and education.

Central Statistics Office figures regarding children in consistent poverty in 2010, to be published later this month, are likely to show an increase from the last figure of 90,000. Mr Finlay said: “Our best guess is that it will grow perhaps by as much as half.”

That would place the number of children in consistent poverty closer to 130,000, a figure Mr Finlay said was “measured by fear, hunger and cold” and was “an extremely frightening thought”.

He said the main factor behind this increased figure was government policy, particularly in cutbacks affecting areas such as social welfare rates, education and family supports.

He said further trouble would be caused by inadequate funding for the new child protection agency that will ultimately operateseparately from the HSE, but for which budgets are being negotiated now.

“All the signs are that the HSE is not being as forthcoming as it needs to be regarding the resources it will be able to transfer on,” said Mr Finlay, adding that unless adequate resources are provided, the new agency could be “strangled at birth” by “bureaucratic power struggles”.

He stressed that the Government needed to take a hippocratic oath ahead of the budget to ensure it does not make the situation worse.

Independent researcher Brian Harvey said the reduction in child benefit from €166 to €140, the scrapping of state bodies such as the Combat Poverty Agency, and cuts in funding to the voluntary and community sector were all impacting upon children and families.

In a document entitled Tomorrow’s Child in an Age of Austerity, Mr Harvey outlines a series of issues, from growing rent arrears and applications to money-lenders to falling teacher numbers meant “more enlightened” choices need to be taken by Government to ensure children do not suffer similar legacy issues like those caused by cutbacks made in the late 1980s “that inflicted damage that lasts to this very day”.

Barnardos director of advocacy Norah Gibbons said next month’s budget would be the fifth very severe budget faced by families, where the poorest in society were paying for the excesses of others.

* www.barnardos.ie