Seán Crowe
Ceist:270 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs her proposals to tackle child poverty. [24393/03]
Written Answers. - Child Poverty.
The reduction and eventual ending of child poverty is a top priority for me and for the Government. The causes of child poverty, as for poverty generally, are multi-faceted and combating it requires a range of measures and interventions. Strategies to address child poverty and the measures to give effect to them are set out in the revised national anti-poverty strategy, the national children's strategy and the more recent national action plan against poverty and social exclusion. The overall target is to reduce the number of children who are consistently poor to below 2% by 2007 and if possible, eliminate consistent poverty for children by then.
Significant progress has already been made in achieving the 2007 goal in the period since 1997. The results of the 2001 Living in Ireland survey, to be published shortly, show that the number of children who are consistently poor has more than halved in the four-year period 1997 to 2001, falling from 15.3% in 1997 to 6.5% in 2001. With this rate of progress, the elimination of consistent poverty among children by 2007 is now a realistic target. The best way of achieving a reduction in child poverty is by reducing the numbers of parents who are unemployed and the current low rate of unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, is probably the main reason consistent poverty among children has fallen so much. The aim must be to maintain high levels of employment and remove obstacles to employment take-up, especially in the case of lone parents and parents with large families.
For those on social welfare, payments will continue to be increased in real terms, with the lower rate to be increased to €150 in 2002 terms by 2007. The basic level of child income support is to be set at 33% to 35% of the minimum adult social welfare rate by 2007. A key objective for other services is to move towards greater equality for all children in terms of access to appropriate education, health and housing. For example, in health care, one specific aim is to reduce the gap in low birth weight rates between children from the lowest and highest socio-economic groups by 10% from the 2002 level by 2007.
Ending child poverty is one of the special initiatives to be undertaken under Sustaining Progress and is being chaired by the office for social inclusion in my Department. The objectives include: better medical and health services within the community for young children and their parents; priority for early education and child care facilities for disadvantaged families; ensuring every child obtains a threshold of numeracy and literacy; accelerated provision of play environments for local communities; wider availability of parenting support services for families at risk; and maximising the efficacy of child income support arrangements.
The newly established Family Support Agency will strengthen the institutional framework for the development of effective and responsive family support services. Family policy is currently being reviewed more generally through a process of consultation in regional forums with family members, those who work with them and public representatives. Issues relating to the causes of child poverty and how best to remedy it come within the scope of the consultation. These issues will also feature in the international conference on families, change and European social policy being hosted by the Irish EU Presidency next May. The priority is to ensure that one outcome of these various initiatives will be a comprehensive, coherent and co-ordinated strategy for ending child poverty, which will also contribute to improving the quality of life and life chances for all our children and build on the considerable progress already made in this regard in recent years.