Social Justice Ireland warns government to plan long and short term to resolve inequality

Social Justice Ireland has warned the Government that it needs to plan for both the short and the long term if it is to resolve some of the issues affecting the country’s most vulnerable people.

The think tank organisation publishes its National Social Monitor 2014 today and in it SJI urges more spending in the areas of healthcare, with a warning that projected population growth will mean that by 2025 the number of people living in Ireland aged over 85 years will have doubled.

The National Social Monitor also outlines how some positive signs of economic rejuvenation — such as falling unemployment figures and the exiting of the bailout — have been tempered by continuing inequality, child poverty, a shortage of social housing and a growing urban-rural divide.

It also stresses the need for more money to be put into early childhood education and social housing, with an estimated 750,000 people now living in poverty — 120,000 more than at the beginning of the recession.

SJI director Seán Healy said the expected rise in the number of elderly people in the population was “just one of many examples that highlight the need for longer-term planning by Government if Ireland is to promote the common good and ensure the wellbeing of Ireland’s growing population”.

Michelle Murphy, research and policy analyst with Social Justice Ireland, listed a range of issues which she said the government needed to prioritise.

“Poverty in rural Ireland is 4.5 percentage points higher than in urban Ireland,” she said. “Government urgently needs to develop a new long-term national rural strategy and ensure a rural and regional employment strategy is part of the Action Plan for Jobs.”

She also referred to education, housing, taxation, sustainability, rural development and income distribution, and Public Participation and Citizen Engagement.

She said: “All of these issues have implications for the well-being of all of Ireland’s population and for Irish society as a whole.”

Dr Healy also referred to the continuing problem of unemployment, with the number of long-term unemployed rising from 32,000 in 2007 to 155,500 at the end of last year.

“Over 146,500 people are still long-term unemployed which is 57.6% of total unemployment compared with 58.2% a year earlier,” he said.

“Fewer than 32,000 were long-term unemployed in 2007. The need for much greater action on this issue is clear when compared to the 31,600 additional jobs created in the past year.”

Full report at:

Social Justice Ireland