Vol. 397 No. 7
8 Mr. G. O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he intends to commission a study on poverty on a regional basis; if he will identify those areas of the country where the problem is most acute; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
As part of the second EC Poverty Programme I arranged for a report on poverty to be prepared by the Economic and Social Research Institute — ESRI. This report was based on a major survey carried out by the ESRI and was funded jointly by the institute, the Combat Poverty Agency and the EC. The report was published in October 1989 and a number of other reports have been made based on the survey's database.
The findings indicate that certain groups, such as households headed by an unemployed person, families with large numbers of children and lone parents, were at risk of poverty in 1986 and early in 1987. One of the most important ways to tackle the problem of poverty for these groups is through increasing the level of support available through the various social welfare schemes. I have taken steps in recent budgets to give special assistance to the long-term unemployed, families and lone parents. A family with three children on long-term unemployment assistance has received an increase of £26.55, 29.7 per cent, almost 30 per cent per week since June 1987. I have also raised the long-standing rural rate of unemployment assistance to the higher urban rate, and introduced new schemes for widowers and other lone parents. I am satisfied that this is the correct approach to aiding the less well off, and that any regional disparities in standards of living, to the extent to which they occur, will be overcome by this approach.
The development of regional poverty statistics from the current ESRI database would be problematic as the sample was not drawn with this in mind and the sample size may not be sufficient to allow definitive conclusions relating to regions to be drawn.
Currently the Combat Poverty Agency is funding a number of further research projects based on the ESRI survey covering child poverty, take up of social welfare benefits and income sharing arrangements in households. It is expected that draft reports on the findings of some of these projects will be available this year.
As was announced in this year's budget, I have made a special allocation of £525,000 to fund a new nationwide programme of community development initiatives which will tackle poverty in disadvantaged urban and rural areas. Fourteen projects from various regions of the country have been invited to take part in this initiative. The allocation of funds will be made once each of the projects have drawn up an outline of their proposed activities over the next three years in consultation with the Combat Poverty Agency. I will also be discussing with the agency their plans for further research in the poverty area in the context of their strategic plan for the period 1990-93.
I welcome the Minister's very comprehensive reply in which he gave a lot of facts. The ESRI report states that 30 per cent of our population are living in poverty at present and that the economic climate is now better than ever to tackle this problem. Does the Minister not agree that there is an urgent need to identify the rural and inner city areas where poverty is prevalent at present? I accept that the Minister has allocated money in the budget for a nationwide programme of community development initiatives which will tackle poverty, but this problem calls for a more indepth study in order to tackle the problem urgently.
May I ask a supplementary?
Sorry, Deputy, we must hear the Minister's reply.
Priority Question No. 4, which we did not get to, relates to this issue.
Question No. 12 also relates to it.
Question No. 12 was tied in with Priority Question No. 4.
Deputy O'Sullivan said the ESRI report stated that 30 per cent of our population are living in poverty. The Deputy should read my reply to Priority Question No. 4, and Questions Nos. 12, 55 and 56, which are related.
On a point of order, can I take it that the Minister is dealing with Question No. 12 now?
My impression is that the Minister is not merely replying to Question No. 8, but a number of other questions also.
Priority Question No. 4 and Question No. 12.
And Questions Nos. 55 and 56.
I hope he is dealing also with Question No. 5.
Priority Question No. 4 was taken with Questions Nos. 12, 55 and 56.
Perhaps we should deal with them together.
The 30 per cent figure referred to in the ESRI report is not the absolute figure of poverty; this figure is taken from one of the lines they use as comparative lines. It is very important to understand that when people set about carrying out research they first set up a research model. The ESRI have made it clear that this is not a measurement of poverty but was based on the "relative poverty line" method.
This figure is based on 1986 data. The ESRI report, which admittedly was published in 1989, refers to the 1986 data. All the increases were given specifically to people in rural areas, lone parents and the long-term unemployed. The approach we have taken is to direct increases specifically towards those people.
These figures can be misrepresented by people involved in protests and pressure groups who take a figure off the top of their heads. These are not real figures. People who are carrying out research set up a comparative model to show where the people most at risk are, but it never sets out to show how many people are living in poverty or where absolute poverty exists. Apart from anything else, the report did not take into consideration all the sources of income or support. The report never set out to do that but its real value lay in the comparative——
On a point of order, the Minister has failed to reply to a very specific question. I asked him what he assessed the level of poverty to be. The Minister is avoiding the issue.
The Chair has no control over the Minister's replies.
Will the Minister answer my question?
If the Deputy wishes, I can give her the reply I would have given her to Priority Question No. 4.
The Economic and Social Research Institute's report entitled Poverty, Income and Welfare in Ireland was published in 1989. It presented a study of poverty in Ireland and an analysis of the effectiveness of the social welfare system in reducing it. It was based on information collected from households during 1986 and early 1987. I wish people would be clear about that and not keeping repeating figures. Even official bodies and organisations use figures which are now three years out of date.
In discussing the level of poverty in Ireland, the authors of the report stated that in their view there was no objective scientific method of establishing the threshold below which households could be regarded as poor. I want to make it quite clear that they established at the outset that there was no objective method of establishing the threshold below which households could be regarded as poor. However, the approach to the measurement of policy which was given most emphasis in the report was the "relative poverty line" method. This calculates income thresholds as proportions of mean equivalent income. The percentage of households or persons in households which fall below given income thresholds can then be measured. The ESRI derived results for relative poverty lines set at 40 per cent, 50 per cent and 60 per cent of mean equivalent income. It was established, for example, that 12.8 per cent of persons lived in households below the 40 per cent line in 1986.
I accept these figures on the basis on which they are presented in the report. It is clear that they do not purport to show, as has often been erroneously stated, that a particular percentage or proportion of the population is living in poverty. The real value of the ESRI report was the identification of those groups in society which were more at risk of poverty — households headed by an unemployed person, households with three or more children and single parents. Prior to the publication of the ESRI report, the Government had already taken steps in 1988 and 1989 to provide special increases for the long-term unemployed and for child dependants. There is no definition of poverty which is universally accepted as scientifically valid by researchers and academics working in the field of poverty research. Because of this, any attempt to compile official statistics on poverty, whether by the Central Statistics Office or other Government agencies, would be a source of considerable controversy, and would not contribute to improving the position of the less well off in our society.
The Minister still has not replied to my question. The Minister attacked the ESRI figures——
I am not attacking the figures for what they are.
Leaving that aside for the moment, I want to ask the Minister how he defines living in poverty, the groups he believes are living in poverty and on what he bases his policy. He should answer those questions in order to end the sterile debate about figures and acknowledge that there is a real problem in regard to the levels of poverty. It does not matter whether the relative poverty lines are set at 40 per cent, 50 per cent or 60 per cent of mean equivalent income; I want to know what concerns the Minister and on what he bases his policy. He has avoided replying to that question.
I have pointed out again and again, as I did in my reply to Question No. 8, that my approach is to raise the income levels to ensure that people have an adequate income. We all want to reach certain income thresholds and that is why I have been increasing the basic payments to people on social welfare. The difficulty is that there is no objective means of establishing an abosolute poverty level in research terms.
At the same time, we know when income levels are too low. We know the people who are at risk and we know the ones who need to get increases. I would not attempt to put figures on it at this stage. We have 11,000 recipients of supplementary welfare allowance and over one million recipients of other payments all of which are higher, with the exception of short-term unemployment assistance. Various other allowances that people in receipt of these benefits are entitled to are not shown. We have brought up the rates for pensioners. The rate set by the commission for Governments to achieve was £45. That now comes to £53 in the current year. The old age pensioners rates are well above that and the widows rates are going up above that too. The only ones below it now are those in receipt of short-term unemployment assistance and supplementary welfare allowance, and people in receipt of disability benefits who have no pay-related benefit. The next rate suggested is around £60. Some have gone above that now and others are approaching it so we are tackling the problem of income in the most practical way.
May I appeal for brevity? Progress today is very sluggish. I propose to call a number of Deputies who are offering and I appeal to them to be brief so that we may deal with other questions.
Would the Minister not agree that people working in the poverty agencies, both voluntary and otherwise, have reason to be disappointed with his reply when it is taken in conjunction with the reply of the Taoiseach to my question on 14 March that the figures from the justice commission of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors are exaggerated? Let me also say that the Combat Poverty Agency, which is funded by the Department, also put forward that figure. The scorn thrown by the Taoiseach on the figures and the refusal of the Minister to accept that the figures are valid are offensive to these organisations and smack of extremely Right wing politics which can only be described as Thatcherite insensitivity at its worst.
What is the question?
How can we plan an agenda for social action on poverty if we do not have agreement on the statistics?
The Deputy may try to confuse everybody but I spent a long time in research and I understand it. I understand the models and what is being done. I have said here that the work done by the ESRI is accurate and valid so let the Deputy not say again that I said there is anything wrong with those figures. It is the interpretation being put on the figures by certain people which is wrong. The figures given by the ESRI are correct as far as they go. The ESRI have asked people not to misuse their figures for their own purposes, but these figures have been thrown around for all sorts of purposes. Those figures are 1986 figures, not this year's figures.
The Combat Poverty Agency figures are for 1989.
The Deputy should not misrepresent the position to the House. The report is dated 1989 but it relates to 1986. The Deputy came in here this afternoon to try to stir things up and make a political point instead of talking about the figures that the questions relate to.
May I dissuade the Members from the notion that they may debate this matter now. They may not. I will call Deputy Gerry O'Sullivan for a brief question. I will facilitate any other Deputies offering provided they are brief. Otherwise I am moving on to another question.
The Combat Poverty Agency report is a submission to the Goverment on the 1990 budget. There may be an uplift in the economy but the benefits of it have not trickled down to the people who need them. Would the Minister not agree that it is time the anti-poverty programme called for by the Combat Poverty Agency was put into action?
I do not disagree with the Deputy on the need for improvements. What I object to is the misuse of the figures. There was an uplift of £216 million. Never before was there such an uplift.
It has not trickled down.
The legislation is being passed here and as a result the benefit trickles through to the people outside. The yardstick is how much a week people are getting. That is what counts, and that is what we are trying to adjust.
If it does not put bread on the table it is no good.
It seems that there is a concerted effort by the Taoiseach and the Minister to deny the realities of poverty in the city. Would the Minister not agree that the real yardstick is those who are unemployed and those who are taking the boat every year? The yardstick is there for all to see, no matter how much the Minister tries to blame the various organisations for presenting false figures. When will the Minister produce the figures he believes are the criteria of povery?
This report was commissioned by the Department of Social Welfare. The database is a 1986 one. I do not deny any of the figures; I accept they are as accurate as one can get.
Will you commission another report relative to 1990?
There are studies going on to pinpoint particular groups and to go back to see how they are doing at this stage.
The Minister says he commissioned the report and accepts the figures. We are not satisfied with the Minister's response. Is it the Minister's answer that the Bill is a response to these figures?
These questions could be left until we are dealing with the Bill.
Deputy O'Sullivan asked the Minister to identify the areas where the problems are most acute. The Minister has not addressed that.
The database that was established will not give the Deputy the information he wants. In 1986 incomes in agriculture were down but they have been up every year since. There is a somewhat different picture now. The real value of any study is to establish the relative position and the people most at risk within various groups. My response had started before the report came out. We knew that the long-term unemployed were those in greatest need of assistance, as well as lone parents. Most of what we were doing was along the right lines.
Would the Minister agree that while rejecting the figures and the assessments of pressure groups in a most derogatory fashion he has totally failed to take advantage of the opportunity presented by my questions to put forward his own definition? Can the Minister confirm that he has no definition of poverty? Does he accept the definition of relative poverty?
This is repetition and argument.
If the Deputy reads the replies she will find that I have covered these points very comprehensively in relation to any definitions.
The Minister has a hit and miss policy — more miss than hit.
I must show the Deputy a very interesting study which points exactly to this question. When there are pressure groups lobbying about figures, the figures themselves are often forgotten and people say things which are totally ridiculous. Several times Deputy Flaherty has said I am rejecting the figures. I am not rejecting the figures.
The Minister is rejecting the assessment of the scale of poverty.
They are different things. The study conducted at the request of the Minister for Social Welfare provided a database in 1986.
The former Minister.
I accept that database and those figures. I accept the relative comparisons they came up with and I accept the authority of the findings from the ESRI. Some of the conclusions and interpretations are far from professional.
