Social deprivation - Time to close the yawning poverty gap

SADLY, while some people have benefited handsomely from this country’s dizzy rise in the global league of developed nations, many others remain deeply mired in poverty.

The yawning gulf between rich and poor is graphically etched in the pages of two reports y from the UN and Combat Poverty. In its survey of the quality of life in 18 countries, the UN now ranks the Republic in eighth place, ahead of both the US and Japan.

But at the coal face of social deprivation, Combat Poverty sees widespread poverty, with the people of Donegal, Mayo, Leitrim and Longford facing the greatest risk of not being able to afford basic necessities.