The End Child Poverty Coalition welcomes this opportunity to appear before the joint committee. The coalition consists of seven national non-governmental organisations that work together to tackle child poverty. They are Barnardos, the Children's Rights Alliance, Focus Ireland, the National Youth Council of Ireland, the One Parent Exchange and Network, OPEN, Pavee Point and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
I propose to make a presentation after which I will be joined by my colleagues, Mr. Patrick Nulty of Focus Ireland and Ms Camille Loftus of OPEN, in fielding members' questions. First known as the Open Your Eyes to Child Poverty Initiative, our organisation was renamed the End Child Poverty Coalition in 2003. The aim of the coalition is to end child poverty in Ireland. Our work is underpinned by the three objectives of monitoring public policy to end child poverty, promoting policy analysis and policy and structural solutions to end child poverty and raising awareness about the persistence of child poverty.
I will comment briefly on the economic context and need to protect the most vulnerable in society in the short term because these issues are exercising the minds of Deputies, Senators and everyone else. I will provide several key statistics on child poverty and outline the experiences of some of those we represent. Members will have received case studies from the various organisations involved in the coalition. These speak for themselves and show the lived experience of child poverty. I will also briefly refer to policy concerns about services before summing up.
The End Child Poverty Coalition welcomes the facts that child poverty has reduced and policies have made inroads in its reduction. However, there is a risk that a lack of sustained investment combined with rising unemployment will increase child poverty again. This is a matter of grave concern. In this regard, the coalition acknowledges the difficulties faced by the State in terms of declining revenue and increasing demand on services and income supports. We are also aware of the process of adjustments to expenditure amounting to €2 billion this year alone. The coalition is, therefore, mindful of the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves.
At the same time, the need to protect the most vulnerable is a stated priority for Government and one which features in the framework document agreed by the social partners. Strategic decisions must be taken now which will maximise the ability of all members of society, including children, to take part in the economic recovery. In the short term, a number of concerns facing families require urgent action. These include social welfare processing times, house repossession and access to money advice and budgeting services.
Government must respond in key and immediate ways to protect families in need. It must redeploy civil servants to ensure applications for job seeker's benefit and allowance are processed urgently, that is, within days rather than weeks or months. I am also mindful of recent representations made on behalf of the community welfare service, which has been inundated by requests for benefits. While increased resources have been made available by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, the community welfare service remains the responsibility of the Health Service Executive which is precluded from increasing expenditure. This is causing a major bottleneck for families.
We also call for the introduction of measures to ensure no person loses his or her home through inability to pay for a period of two years, rather than the one year currently envisaged. The Government must also ensure a sufficient number of budget advisers is employed with the Money Advice and Budgeting Service to assist people in devising household budget plans and survival strategies. This could involve the secondment of public sector workers to MABS. The coalition has evidence of significant waiting lists in particular areas and several of the member organisations of the coalition are in contact with the Office for Social Inclusion on this issue because MABS operates under the auspices of the OSI.
The Government must ensure applications for secondary benefits such as rent supplement and the back to school clothing and footwear allowance are processed as a matter of urgency. It must prioritise a strategic review of how the social welfare system interacts with the labour market to maintain and sustain as many people in employment as possible. As part of this objective, consideration should be given to allowing, even on a temporary basis, greater flexibility in the working hours requirement to qualify for family income supplement.
I propose to briefly refer to some of the statistics on the extent and experience of child poverty, although our concern is predominately the lived experience of families and children in poverty. According to figures from the 2007 EU survey of income and living conditions carried out by the Central Statistics Office, the consistent poverty rate for children fell from 10.3% in 2006 to 7.4% in 2007. While this is a welcome development, children had higher consistent poverty rates than working age adults or older people and account for nearly 40% of all those in consistent poverty. Children continue to make up a large proportion of those who experience income poverty and deprivation and continue to be the age group most at risk of poverty, with a rate of slightly less than 20%. This compares with an at risk of poverty rate of 15% among people of working age. It is because children are at more risk of poverty than any other definable age group in the population that the coalition came together. The case studies can be found at the end of the document supplied to the joint committee.
While the coalition is very concerned about what is currently taking place, we are all concerned to ensure the Government makes a commitment to manage and reduce child poverty. For this reason, we have drawn up a set of medium-term policy objectives. One of our priorities is to ensure an increase in basic social welfare payments for families. Poor children do not exist in isolation but grow up in poor households with poor parents. Child income support alone is not sufficient to tackle child poverty and must be combined with measures that ensure an adequate income for parents. To this end, the Government should ensure the value of basic social welfare payments to poor families. For example, the one-parent family payment and jobseeker's allowance, must be at least in excess of the "at risk of poverty" threshold. While this may appear to be an erudite measure, this is the threshold used to measure poverty. The rates of payment must, therefore, tick this box and raise families and children above the "at risk" threshold. The qualified child payment, a targeted child income support for the poorest families, should be increased and thereby contribute in a more efficient manner to lifting the incomes of poor families above the "at risk of poverty" threshold.
Family income supplement, FIS, is a key vehicle for encouraging families to move from welfare to work and keeping vulnerable people in work. It is a weekly payment designed to support families who are in low paid employment. To qualify for the payment the recipient must work at least 19 hours per week. Social welfare supports such as jobseeker's allowance are not a magic bullet and FIS has a key role to play in addressing child poverty. We are concerned that many families wait for long periods to receive the payment after they apply.
In light of the fact that the pattern of part-time work and irregular hours is likely to be more common as a result of the recession, the Government must consider taking certain steps. We urge it to do the following: increase the income thresholds relating to FIS; raise the payment rate; make the payment automatic to eligible families which, as other NGOs suggested to the committee, could be done through a greater integration of the tax and welfare system; and make it available to more families whose members are in low-paid work and whose hours are irregular.
We realise that not all of this can happen overnight. However, we are providing a number of key pointers with regard to the immediate situation in which we find ourselves. We have also outlined the long-term policy framework to which we are committed and which we will continue to progress.
We are also interested in access to services. We are aware that direct service provision does not, in the main, come within the remit of the committee. However, since this matter is germane to the committee's work, I intend to comment on it in the context of the areas of education, health and housing.
Two of our major concerns relate to the provision of early childhood care and education. The first few years of a child's life are the most critical in the context of learning, development and socialisation. The remedial action in which we have been investing is difficult and costly to implement and is often too late.
For children living in poverty, preschool could be the first step that sets them on a path away from such poverty. It breaks the cycle and has major potential in the context of reducing individuals' dependence down the line. The lack of affordable, flexible and quality early childhood education and care and after-school care restricts parents' employment options and denies children the opportunity to develop to the greatest degree possible. This means that some families remain locked into a cycle of poverty. Provision of the services to which I refer must be safeguarded and expanded. There is a need for a major investment in this regard.
The Government must address educational disadvantage in an effective way during the next three years by fully implementing the DEIS strategy of 2005 and the Traveller education strategy of 2006. In addition, it must increase access to medical cards as a way to close the gap between rich and poor in respect of health care. The increase in the number of people receiving social welfare payments as a result of redundancies will in any event necessitate that more individuals and families will be eligible for medical cards.
The most recent assessment of housing need carried out at the end of last year indicates that at least 59,000 households are in need of social housing, which represents an increase of over 30% since 2005. This development has taken everyone, including NGOs, by surprise. We knew matters were bad but we did not realise they were that bad. Over half of the households to which I refer are likely to be comprised of families with children. In 2005, three quarters of the families on the waiting list were one-parent families. The latter wait longer for housing than any other household type. The families of some 36,000 children were on local authority waiting lists in 2005. It is fair to assume that when a detailed breakdown is provided in respect of the 2008 assessment by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, this figure will have increased.
The coalition calls on the Government to make rent supplement more employment-friendly by bringing the means assessment into line with differential rent schemes. Rent supplement is extremely important to families for which poverty is a matter of concern at present.
We have set out the challenging economic and revenue context and what we believe to be the appropriate remedial actions that need to be taken. However, we are duty bound by those we represent to remind the committee of the ongoing needs of children and families living in poverty and the kind of solutions required in the context of income supports and access to public services. We acknowledge that substantial resources are required to protect children who are living in poverty or who are at risk of poverty and that the Exchequer is facing significant shortfalls in tax revenue at present. As a result, the coalition favours a broadening of the tax base as a means of raising revenue and preventing the type of cutbacks in essential services that will impact on the most vulnerable. The opportunity exists to design a tax system with an emphasis on a fairer, progressive and more sustainable tax regime, with a reduced reliance on indirect taxation as a means of generating revenue. It is our experience that indirect taxation really affects those on the lowest incomes and that is a matter of major concern.
The submission circulated to members contains information on a number of case studies carried out by the various members of the End Child Poverty Coalition. These studies provide a genuine indication of what it is like to be in need as a child and how we are responding to that need. I welcome any questions members may wish to pose.