More than 100,000 children living in poverty in North

More than 100,000 children are living in poverty in the North, a shock report from an Assembly committee revealed today.

Close to half of them are living in severe poverty and the committee urged Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness to put tackling the crisis at the centre of their programme for government.

The call for action came in an interim report on child poverty from the Committee for the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.

Committee chairman Danny Kennedy (UUP Newry & Armagh) said: "There can be little doubt that having more than 100,000 children in Northern Ireland living in poverty and 44,000 children living in severe poverty is unacceptable in the 21st Century."

The interim report contained written submissions on how the issue should be tackled from over 40 stakeholders and was published on the day the committee started taking oral evidence at Stormont.

Mr Kennedy said the committee welcomed the commitment within the programme for government to work towards the elimination of child poverty by 2020 and to work towards the elimination of severe child poverty by 2012.

But Mr Kennedy said: "These are, however, very challenging targets and the Committee urged the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and the Executive to examine the submissions received by it, and to use the proposals put forward within the report to strengthen the short to medium-term targets and actions on tackling child poverty within the programme for government, investment strategy and budget."

The committee said there needed to be a robust basis on which to build an anti-poverty strategy and said it aimed to conclude its full inquiry in early spring.

Amid a series of recommendations the committee proposed that OFMDFM should have a role in assessing and challenging departmental plans for the delivery of government.

The two ministers should "ensure the robustness of departmental targets and actions designed to contribute to the achievement of the cross-cutting themes of a better future, including measures which are highlighted as contributing to reductions in child poverty."

The committee said a number of organisations had made submissions to them which recognised the important role the Investment Strategy could play in tackling child poverty.

In particular, there was almost universal support for investment to deliver a major increase in the availability of affordable housing.

"This is seen as being a very important component of any medium to long term strategy to tackle child poverty," said the committee.

The report added: "The committee is very concerned at the increasing impact on low-income families of the shortfall that exists between housing benefit and the rent being charged in the private rented sector."

The committee said it also recognised the importance of minimising the impact of rates and water charges on those on low incomes.

It said: "The committee, therefore, calls on the Executive to ensure that the design of the affordability tariff for water charges and the systems being established to provide rates relief, take account of the targets for the reduction of child poverty."

As an immediate step it also recommended the establishment of a target date for the agreement of a new anti-poverty strategy - and a date for the establishment of a Ministerial Forum to drive delivery of the strategy.

Committee member Delores Kelly (SDLP, Upper Bann) expressed her deep concern at the findings of the committee.

She said: "The findings of this report were expected to be challenging but the full extent of the problem that it uncovers is truly shocking.

"Levels of child poverty across the North are reaching crisis levels."

She said one in four children lived their day to day lives in the shadow of poverty.

"That is no way for any child to live and no way for any child to grow and fulfil their full potential. It is clear that drastic steps and interventions need to be taken to tackle this problem head on as a matter of urgency."

Martina Anderson (Sinn Féin, Foyle) said there needed to be a fundamental review of the tax credit system to ensure some of the most vulnerable in society are not hounded for the return of overpayments which occurred through no fault of their own.

She added: "We are also calling for direct intervention on the benefits gap to ensure that low income families do not have shortfalls between benefits and rent.

"There must be more affordable childcare, action to ensure the full uptake of benefit payments, tighter regulations on money lending institutions and DLA claims and appeals prioritised for children and the backlog addressed."