I propose to take Questions Nos. 15, 23 and 33 together.
The latest Household Budget Survey, published in October, presents results from the survey carried out between June 1999 and July 2000. This representative survey of Irish private households is the first such survey since 1994-95.
The survey shows the changes in disposable income of households at different income levels over this period. While the change in income varied across different income levels, that rent incomes have increased significantly at all income levels over the period.
What these figures do not show is the sharp decrease we have seen in consistent poverty over recent years. Consistent poverty – a combined measure using income thresholds and the experience of deprivation – is used for the global target in the national anti-poverty strategy which has been reviewed in consultation with the social partners. Consistent poverty has fallen from 15.1% in 1994 to 6% in 2000, the latest figures available. The Government is committed to reducing consistent poverty to below 2%, and ideally eliminating it by 2007. In addition, progress in relation to the proportion of the population falling below relative income lines, particularly for a sustained period, will be monitored over the lifetime of the strategy.
The Conference of Religious in Ireland's pre-budget submission claims that the gap between rich and poor has widened by €243 per week over the past five years. This is based on a calculation of social welfare increases for a long-term unemployed person compared with the changes for a person on €50,790 per annum arising for tax reductions, wage increases, and the take-up of an account under the Government's special savings incentive scheme.