Poverty agency says child poverty is rising

CHILD POVERTY is rising as unemployment increases, the Combat Poverty Agency has said.

In a separate bulletin the agency says children were the group that did worst out of the October budget, being the only one that experienced no decline in poverty-risk.

In the latest bulletin from the agency, June Tinsley, policy development officer for the Barnardos charity, is quoted as saying the increase in child poverty was not yet emerging in statistics “but we are starting to see it”.

“Poor children live in poor households, and if people lose their jobs it will affect their whole families. The situation now is that child poverty is going to increase.

“I don’t think there is a strong enough political will to end it now,though, given that there are so many different things competing for the limited resources.”

She says the budget’s €2 increase in the qualified child allowance – it is targeted at the poorest children – shows a shift towards recognising that specifically targeting the poorest families was more effective in reducing child poverty than a universal payment. However, she said it would not make a decisive impact as the increase was too low.

“The budget also saw cuts in education, in things like literacy initiatives and school transport costs, and these will have a negative impact on children’s experiences of education despite education being a proven route out of poverty. The cutbacks in education are the ones that will impact most on children.”

In a separate bulletin, Analysis of Poverty Impact of Budget 2009, the agency says after the budget in October there was a fall of 4 per cent to 5 per cent in the “at-risk-of-poverty” rate for women, older people and people of working age, yet the rate remained unchanged for children – “reflecting the cuts in child-income support”.