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| THIS IS SCARY & WORTH READING - NO FALL IN THE NUMBERS LIVING IN POVERTY DESPITE BOOM YEARS national | miscellaneous | news report  Wednesday April 17, 2002 17:47 by Michael Ronan O'Connell - Socialist Workers Party michaeloconnell2001 at yahoo dot com 087-9212272 From today's Irish Times No fall in the numbers living in poverty despite boom years The proportion of the population living in poverty remains essentially unchanged after five years of boom, writes Maev-Ann Wren. The richest 10 per cent of the population received 25 per cent of the budget giveaways during the five years of this Government, while the poorest 20 per cent received under five per cent, new analysis from the Combat Poverty Agency reveals. The State agency has produced a challenging commentary on the Government's priorities following its analysis of the five budgets from 1998 to 2002. Ireland, it says, "is amongst the most unequal countries in the EU, with one of the highest rates of relative income poverty". The Government's budgets have left relative income poverty virtually unchanged with 20 per cent of households living on incomes below 50 per cent of the average and 9.5 per cent living in "severe poverty" on incomes below 40 per cent of the average, according to the agency. This finding will be unwelcome news for the Government which has trumpeted its achievements under the National Anti-Poverty Strategy. The NAPS was initiated by the Rainbow Coalition and seeks to reduce "consistent poverty" or the number of poor households experiencing basic deprivations of food, heating and clothing. Measured in this way, poverty has decreased. However, when measured in terms of relative income and consequent social exclusion, poverty has remained essentially unchanged "placing Ireland in the top half of the EU poverty league", according to Mr Jim Walsh, the CPA's head of research. The agency has commented that the most recent budget which favoured households on low incomes "stands in stark contrast to the previous four budgets, where middle and higher income groups were the main beneficiaries". Families on welfare still receive less than they need to rear children. At €44 per week, this is "over €4 less than the basic costs of a child". After the budget some commentators who assessed the Minister for Finance's record concluded he had not favoured the rich because in proportionate terms he had given greater tax relief to the lower paid. This is not supported by the CPA after an in-depth assessment of the income tax and social welfare changes.
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Comments (9 of 9)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Does anyone know? Is it a percentage of GDP/GNP or an absolute measure of access to food,energy,education,health-care?
What does it mean to talk about someone living in poverty and is the measurement the same from year to year?
I earn the same amount of money as I did 8 years ago, when I was 16! The money went so much further then, it seems like everything has doubled in price, so I'm much worse off now!
In 1987, when our brave Trade union leaders got their first bite of the cherry Ireland had a standard European relationship between workers and bosses salaries.
Now, after 15 years of 'significant' TU influence we are the second in the OECD - only the US has greater inequality.
Our GNP spending on public service is now below 37% - lowest in the EU (yes, lower than Britain, who also have more equal incomes distribution).
Just imagine how bad things will be if workers have to negotiate collectively and threaten to strike cos Gerro and the lads won't be looking after us. This boom has been a con.
I agree that the "boom" has chiefly been of benefit to the elites in Ireland. So, it's not that surprising that Indymedia readers have that feeling: look at these Irish Times reader's poll comments if you want to see how the IT readership is thinking.
http://scripts.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/regularvote.cfm?pollid=753
From the Irish Times comments:
Full employment comes at a cost - there is less reward to go around. But I get a vibe that full employment is not the No1 priority of your average employee - they want what they can get and damn the rest.
Bollix.
Full employment is obviously the priority of all the bosses who have laid off workers in the last year.
'Average employees' should of course shut up and take whatever wage is offered - that way we can get a true neo-classical market in labour. Lets look at getting management salaries back in line with workers - instead of the concept that a CEO is worth 130 times a worker (OK in the US is 480 - but they're mad. Oh yeah, we wnat to be like them don't we).
On GluttonMan's earlier question - my reading is that it's relative poverty that has increased - this is as opposed to absolute poverty. However the increase here has been huge due to increased wage inequality and the move to a service economy in recent years as all the Yuppies send their laundry out and forget how to make their own coffee.
I seem to recall that the numbers in absolute poverty have decreased (defined by things like do you have a warm coat) however absolute poverty is a v. subjective measure. Inside toilets used to be a luxury - now you're in 'absolute poverty' if you don't have one. But who gets to pick? At least relative poverty is based on maths.
I appreciate all the arguments about national pay deals being good for some and bad for others.
I just have this question: why are all the employer and capitalist lobby groups absolutely gagging for a return to local bargaining? Why are they so scared of the partnership deals? Surely the SFA and friends ("the paramilitary wing of the PDs") wouldn't call for no further national agreements unless it was in the interest of their members?
Anyone who believes that there is full employment in Ireland is a gullible ignoramus who swallows elitist propaganda.
This is a good question. I've heard two theories on this:
a) at this stage workers in individual shops are getting pissed off and starting to look at means of exercising their power. The employers are looking to scare the TU elite into getting these people back in line i.e. to enforce their promises of industrial peace upon their own members as the price of the nice dinners in Dublin castle and the junkets, suits and 'ear' of the government
b) they reckon that the trade union movement now has a generation of officials who have never had to bargain locally. These people will make a balls of it and provide easy pickings. It will take a few years before the unions learn how to bargain again. Combine this with the media's representation of all strikes as bad and selfish and they think they will have the upper hand in negotiations - getting deals below the amazing 5% in PPF.
There's a recession here and strikes will be broken, unions derecognised (whats the betting on action during the world cup - 'ruining' it for everybody) and splits within the labour movement.
But if people remember the principles of TU's, don't trust the elites no matter what they say they are for (definitely including the TU and political bosses) and remember that only through action can you achieve results, only through solidarity can you win we can give the SFA, IBEC, ICTU and the rest of the bastards a run for their money. (or should I say our money).
Thanks C. for your answer to my question. Since then I've done a search on DMOZ and with google and found that you are substantially correct: there are at least two indicators of poverty, relative income proportion and deprivation of socially-perceived needs. The combination of these two seems to be called poverty.
There's a report from Combat Poverty Agency available at http://www.cpa.ie/monitorpov.htm
and there's a paper by someone called Seosammh McCarthaigh at http://www.ispa.ie/papers/mccarthy.doc (note if you search on Google with "Ireland poverty measurement" you can pull up a link to this paper which has a html translation. His, McCartaigh's paper appears to question the arbitrary use of relative income thresholds.
The CPA paper seems to show that between 1994 and 1997 more people became poor by the combined measure of poverty and that slightly less were measured as "deprived".
I couldn't find a link to the report behind the newsreport that started this whole thread.
-GluttonMan
(when I get fat some of it trickles off my belly down to you! and don't forget the crumbs!)