Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On the question of what are likely to be the at risk of poverty rates in 2012 and 2013, it is very difficult to foresee these rates, as it depends on the trends in household incomes which are affected by employment, wages, migration, dependency rates and social transfers. The Department of Social Protection has carried out an analysis of the social impact of budget 2013 which we have published and is on the Department's website. It shows that the at risk of poverty rate is likely to be unchanged as a result of the welfare and direct income tax measures in the budget.

Reducing the level of poverty is a process which takes time, which is reflected in the design of the ten year national action plan for social inclusion. The Europe 2020 target is based on a ten year timeframe from 2010 to 2020. In addition, there can be short-term variations in poverty trends from year to year. It is important to focus on the long-term pattern.

We prioritise the population living in consistent property as a group which experiences the worst effects of poverty. This includes persons who might not be able to afford a hot meal every other day, warm clothes and so on. There are indicators of which we know which indicate someone is quite poor. A lot of factors influence the national social targets for poverty reduction and the key factor is employment, that is, earning enough money to be able to sustain a reasonably decent standard of living.

What is different about Ireland? First, a very high percentage of the population in Ireland has no other source of income, particularly our pensioners, and without the social transfers they would be at risk of poverty. This is something that transcends party politics in Ireland. We want to see people in Ireland having a decent retirement pension. Even with all the difficulties the country has faced, we have held on to that. It is not always popular with all of the economists, but people involved in politics see the impact on the ground. Second, Ireland allocates a very high level of public resources to social transfers. Third, Ireland targets its social transfers efficiently at those most in need.

There is also an academic debate about how the calculations are done. Deputies will know this often gives rise to differences of understanding among the general public. By and large, issues such as the possession of a medical card would not feature in the at-risk-of-poverty statistics but, in fact, Deputies know that the possession of a medical card is extremely valuable. For population statistics in the Central Statistics Office, CSO, the figures are done by technical experts and some things are included and some are not. For example, a medical card for older people is very important and is not just an enormous psychological comfort but is also of practical assistance. We do very well on the statistics. Our statistics show that for people over 65 years old the poverty reduction effect was 87.5% in 2011, while it was 66.9% in 2007. This compares to EU norms of 81.9% in 2011 and 79.2% in 2007. Not only has Ireland continued to perform well in protecting our older people from the risk of poverty through social transfers, it has also improved its poverty reduction effect well above the improvements noted across the 27 EU member states in this period. The trends strongly suggest that the social transfers will continue to perform well into the future, especially for older people. We expect that the data for 2012 will be available from the CSO - the people there compile the data - in late 2013.