Tom Hayes
Question:132 Mr. Hayes asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the position with regard to relative poverty levels in the State and the revised targets for the national anti-poverty strategy. [12174/04]
View answerWednesday, 28 April 2004
Questions (106, 107)
Seán Ryan
Question:135 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the progress made to date with regard to achieving the target set in An Agreed Programme for Government of reducing consistent poverty to below 2%; the percentage in consistent poverty at the latest date for which figures are available; if the results of the national survey carried out in 2003 are available; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12063/04]
View answerWritten answers
The most recent figures available for relative poverty levels in Ireland are to be found in the ESRI report, "Monitoring Poverty Trends in Ireland (Dec 2003)", which was based on the results of the 2001 living in Ireland survey. The analysis in the ESRI report indicates that the at risk of poverty rate, that is, the number of people with incomes below 60% of equivalised median income, has increased overall from 19.8% in 1998 to 21.9% in 2001. It also indicates that the risk of falling below that income threshold has increased for people who are ill or disabled, for the elderly and for people on home duties.
A number of factors contribute to this. During periods of high economic growth increases in household income can outstrip even substantial increases in the incomes of households with relatively low earnings or on social welfare. This is precisely what happened in Ireland in recent years. There were particular circumstances in the period from the mid-1990s when a combination of increased female participation in the workforce, reduced unemployment generally, tax reform and, crucially, high earnings growth caused very large increases in household income. These increases in household incomes were substantially higher than increases both in individual earnings and social welfare incomes over this period, despite virtually unprecedented improvements in employment and social provision across the board in this period.
Income is just one indicator of poverty. Other factors, not least employment rates and levels of home ownership, all of which have been positive in Ireland over the same period, also have a major bearing on a person's standard of living. While the analysis of the at risk of poverty indicator provides us with valuable information on the proportion of our population at risk of poverty, it is necessary to go further in order to define more precisely the numbers who are experiencing poverty in terms of being consistently deprived of goods and services regarded as essential for living in Ireland today.
It is with regard to consistent poverty that the Government has fixed targets in its revised national anti-poverty strategy. The target is to reduce consistent poverty to below 2% by 2007. The success of Government policies in tackling consistent poverty is reflected in the sharp decreases observed in this indicator in recent years, down from 15% in 1994 to some 5.2% in 2001.
The 2003 national survey referred to is the Irish component of a new EU wide survey on income and living conditions called EU-SILC. This replaces the living in Ireland surveys which were previously undertaken by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, as part of another EU survey, the household panel survey, which has now been discontinued. The 2001 survey was the last in the series. The Irish component of EU-SILC is being undertaken by the Central Statistics Office. Work on the new survey commenced last year and it is expected that data for 2003 will be published towards the end of this year. The ESRI will continue to carry out an independent analysis of this data on behalf of my Department.