Poverty’s lasting effect on children revealed in new report

Children in families that fell into poverty during the recession are still displaying social, emotional and behavioural problems years later, a report reveals.

The finding is among the latest results from the ongoing Growing Up in Ireland study of 20,000 children launched in Dublin yesterday by Children’s Minister James Reilly.

The report’s co-author, Dr Dorothy Watson of the Economic and Social Research Institute, said poverty had a lingering effect on children, even in cases where the parents managed to get out of poverty.