asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will outline the extent of poverty in Ireland.
Written Answers. - Poverty in Ireland.
16.
There is a wide variety of approaches to defining and measuring poverty and the measurement of the extent of poverty depends on the definition chosen. I regard it as extremely important to obtain reliable data on poverty and I am glad to say that it has been possible to arrange for a major survey of poverty in Ireland to be carried out by the Economic and Social Research Institute as part of the Second EC Poverty Programme. The study is being funded jointly by the EC, the Combat Poverty Agency and the institute. One of the objectives of this study is to establish the extent of poverty and the results of this study will be published later this year.