Tackling poverty should be a key priority in the National Development Plan on which Ireland's next round of EU structural funds will be based, the Combat Poverty Agency has said.
In a submission to the Department of Finance, it says the entire plan should be "poverty-proofed" to establish how the proposals in it would affect poverty.
In addition, Combat Poverty asks for a wide range of measures to be included under five headings. If action is taken under these headings, it says, it will make a significant contribution to tackling poverty and promoting social inclusion.
The headings are:
Local development and urban regeneration: one element in an overall strategy to tackle poverty and social exclusion must be the regeneration of disadvantaged urban and rural communities experiencing concentrations of multiple deprivation. There is an exceptionally high risk of poverty in local authority housing estates, it says, and there are inferior living conditions in these estates in cities, towns and villages.
Educational disadvantage: Educational disadvantage curtails the life chances and choices of adults and young people. It helps to perpetuate poverty and social exclusion from generation to generation. It lists a number of issues which should be tackled, including the costs of education, pre-school education and preventing educational disadvantage.
Rural poverty: in addressing poverty and social exclusion in rural areas, the focus should be on people rather than space. There is a particular requirement to ad dress the needs of small farmers. However, most rural residents are not farmers "and are often marginalised, invisible and outside the mainstream of rural society".
The social economy: the social economy, it says, is made up of community-owned enterprises which set out to benefit the community. Such an economy has substantial potential to improve the quality of life of those living in poverty by providing jobs and services in areas where the free market has failed to do so. "For this potential to be realised, it is important that the development of the social economy be seen as a policy function in its own right and not be tagged on to existing policies or programmes."
Social inclusion: promoting social inclusion should be a key priority in all sections of the Nation al Development Plan, but specific funding should also be given to community and voluntary organisations which aim to promote social inclusion through such measures as pre-school care and working with the long-term unemployed or with people with disabilities.
"The next National Development Plan will probably be the last major injection of EU structural funds that Ireland will receive," it concludes.
"Previous EU funds have been of vital importance in laying the groundwork for the current economic boom. The next plan must invest in addressing Ireland's major outstanding problem which is constraining economic development and leading to a divided or dual society, that is, continuing, extensive and deep-seated poverty."