Poverty trap - Cowen must ease burden in Budget

CHRISTMAS promises to be a bleak time for many people judging by today’s report that calls to St Vincent de Paul soared by over 60% in the past year.

While those with money in their pockets will be celebrating, more than a quarter-of-a-million households will be receiving assistance from the charity.

Nothing could be more depressing than the realisation that 70,000 children are mired in consistent poverty or that 300,000 are in households surviving on less than €300 a week. While the Republic is among the wealthiest nations on earth, it is also among the most expensive, where people on social welfare and pensions find it impossible to make ends meet.

Despite hearing once more the Celtic Tiger’s purr, if not its growl, grinding poverty is still a tragic fact of life in modern Ireland. Though calls to the society were once confined to Christmas, they now flood in all the year round, something Finance Minister Brian Cowen should also remedy in his Budget.