More action urged to beat child poverty

More must be done to help children caught in the “intolerable” poverty trap in Ireland, a senior cleric said today.

The Church of Ireland’s Archbishop of Armagh, Robin Eames, announced he would be leading a forum of government and church representatives, aid organisations and charities to look at the issue of child poverty.

The Primate of All Ireland said his initiative – Decoding the Culture - follows recent studies which showed that 8% or 32,000 children in Northern Ireland were severely poor.

A further 42% were classified as living in poverty, while in the Republic 15.7% were living below national poverty lines, he said.

“The Christian conscience demands that more is done for Irish children who are enduring the poverty trap in their earliest years,” he told the Church of Ireland’s annual General Synod in Dublin today.

Dr Eames said that childcare was also a problem with parents forced to work long hours, leaving their children with carers.

“For many people, their recent experiences of ’progress’ in Irish society is both dehumanising and demeaning,” he said.

“I urge government to start addressing the needs of real families as they try to earn a living and provide a home environment where children can be raised to become good members of society.”

Dr Eames used his presidential address to the synod to demand an end to violence in Northern Ireland which he said was an issue that involved the whole island.

“All our people are and must be ingredients of the process of peace,” he said.

The Archbishop also said that the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin had been given the “privilege” of political power, but he urged them to use their power to move the peace process forward.

“Peace and justice remain more important than any single party.

“History will not judge kindly a reluctance to use political power to make society on this island safer, more stable and just,” he warned.

Dr Eames said that racial hatred was the “latest challenge to Irish normality and democracy” and said that immigration was now a key feature of life in Ireland.

“We cannot talk of an Ireland at peace with itself if we do not recognise that racialism is as much a threat to stability as any other cause.”

The Archbishop also used his address to highlight the issue of divisions within the Anglican Church over attitudes to sexuality.

Dr Eames, who chaired the Lambeth Commission which produced the Windsor Report on the issue, said that differences were less important than the real work of the church which was its “mission to a sad world”.

“The Church of Ireland has long extended the hand of hospitality, friendship and support to all parts of the Anglican communion – such attitudes must transcend diversity,” he said.

The Archbishop of Armagh also paid tribute to the late Pope, John Paul II, and conveyed the Church of Ireland’s sympathy to the Roman Catholic Church at his death.