THE NUMBER of people living in poverty has increased by 60,000 within the past year, Social Justice Ireland director Fr Seán Healy has claimed.
“Unemployment is not falling and the numbers employed are not increasing,” he added. “Action in areas such as adult literacy is nowhere near what is required.”
Fr Healy was commenting on a study by Social Justice Ireland, published yesterday, which claimed the Government had failed to meet the key targets it set itself as part of the Europe 2020 Strategy after it came to power last year.
Fr Healy said there could be no doubt the Government and EU were failing Ireland’s poorest and most vulnerable.
“It is essential that both institutions prioritise solidarity and ensure the strategy is genuinely inclusive,” he said.
The study expressed concern at the failure of policymakers in regard to the need to do more to protect the vulnerable than to issue promises that jobs would be available when the economy recovered. It was important, it noted, to focus on job creation and to prepare people to be in a position to avail of an economic upturn.
However, it was also important to recognise that Ireland was facing high levels of long-term unemployment for years to come.
“It appears highly unlikely that sufficient market-based jobs will emerge in the short to medium terms to provide the necessary positions that would substantially reduce unemployment in Ireland,” it added. “Consequently, an intervention of scale is required that would dramatically reduce the numbers of long-term unemployed.”
While welcoming recent Coalition initiatives on jobs, the study urged measures to reduce in-work poverty by making tax credits refundable and reducing the level of long-term unemployment to 1.3 per cent of the labour force.
The study also called for social impact assessments prior to implementing policies dealing with poverty and social exclusion.
