Almost 640,000 Irish people – including just under 200,000 kids – are living in poverty, a grim new report revealed yesterday.
And the crisis must be tackled urgently by the Government, Social Justice Ireland has warned.
The charity slammed the coalition’s decision not to increase core social welfare rates in Budget 2021 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chief Dr Sean Healy said: “The Government knows how important social welfare payments are when it comes to addressing poverty as the improvements in 2018 and 2019 attest. Yet Ireland’s poorest people were left behind in Budget 2020 and again in Budget 2021 as Government decided not to increase core social welfare rates.
“Despite allocating more resources than any previous Budget in the history of the State, the distribution of those resources was such that the gap between the poor and the better-off will widen in 2021 and inequality will increase.”
The report also revealed 885,977 people are experiencing hardship and deprivation – with 293,258 of these children.
More than 98,000 people living in poverty are in employment and they have been described by SJI as the “working poor”.
Dr Healy, who labelled the latest figures as “unacceptable” after several years of sustained economic growth, added: “We welcome the improvements in poverty rates but despite the fall in numbers, the scale of poverty is still far too high and presents some serious policy challenges.
“[Tuesday’s] figures reinforce just how critically important welfare is in addressing poverty.
“Without social welfare payments 41.4% of Ireland’s population would be living in poverty, instead of 12.8%.
“Such an underlying poverty rate suggests a deeply unequal distribution of income.”
