SPECIFIC MEASURES must be taken by the Government to ensure that the recovery plan does not impact most heavily on the poorest section of society, according to a recent UN report.
The report was compiled by the UN independent expert on human rights and extreme poverty, Magdalena Sepulveda, who visited Ireland earlier this month, following an invitation by the Government. While here she met members of the Oireachtas, former minister of state for equality Mary White, representatives of eight government departments and a number of NGOs.
In her preliminary report, just released, she said the sustained economic boom enabled the Government to implement several social protection strategies that significantly diminished the level of poverty. However, not all members of society benefited equally from economic growth, she said. The full report will be published in June.
“The current economic and financial crisis poses a disproportionate threat to those who did not benefit much from the Irish economic boom, and is a serious threat to the milestones achieved in social protection,” she said.
“While the need for the Irish Government to make savings at this time is real and understandable, the responses must be in full compliance with human rights standards and must promote gender equality. This means that specific measures must be taken to ensure that the recovery plan does not disproportionately impact the poorest sector of society, pushing them deeper into poverty and increasing their social exclusion.”
The incoming government will be asked for its responses to this report at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, later this year.
Ms Sepulveda expressed “deep concern” that the present Government’s recovery measures did not include a comprehensive and consistent policy to protect the most vulnerable members of society, and that upcoming cuts were likely to have a significant impact on the living standards of the most vulnerable groups.
She said children were the group most likely to be at risk of poverty and that the cuts in child benefit were of particular concern.