Ms Danielle McKenna:

I am project manager of Rialto Youth Project. Ireland has higher rates of child poverty than the EU average. It is estimated that a quarter of children in Ireland are currently living in poverty. It is such a complex and multifaceted issue but with only a short amount of time available to us, we will focus on how education and housing deeply impacts children living in poverty.

The OECD has stated that children and young people from working class areas have been the most impacted by the global pandemic in their educational progression. We have a youth work team and two after-school projects in Rialto Youth Project. From connecting with the local schools we already know that literacy levels among children and young people are not even close to the national average when young people are transitioning into secondary school. The statistics show that less than 10% of young people from working class and marginalised communities go on to third level education even if they are in an access programme.

One of our core beliefs is that education is a key way out of poverty. Often when we talk to young people about educational experiences, they describe feelings of being powerless and of being left behind. Children are extraordinary.

They show incredible resilience and desire to connect, learn, play and develop. However, we see children who are clouded in shame – a shame that does not belong to them or their families. The shame rests at the feet of the State which has perpetuated structural inequality towards working-class children and their families for generations. There are studies that have tracked children's hopes and dreams for the future. For working-class children there is a time in their young childhood where the reality of their positioning in society becomes apparent. This invisible bubble is understood by children, particularly those in working-class areas. From 2012-16, we did a project with Ms Fiona Whelan and BrokenTalkers called Natural History of Hope where 250 stories were collected from girls and young women growing up and working in Rialto and they talked a lot about the metaphor of class as "the bubble". One of the quotes from that is as follows:

Can you see it ...? The bubble? We're inside it. You see everything and everyone through the bubble. And everyone sees the bubble when they look at you. They make decisions about you. They tell you, you can't. They tell you, you won't. They tell you, you'll never. They measure you with invisible rulers. You will come to love the bubble and hate it. What does your bubble feel like ...? [Mine's] ... like a shell on my back. It's heavy [but] I hope yours is ... floaty and ... easy to get out of.

That is many young people from working class communities' experience of growing up in generational inequality where education attainment may have been low and where there are higher rates of families with unemployment and of one-parent families on incomes that do not match those of the living wage today. It is not only education that is the issue, but housing that does not meet their needs. This is a serious issue. We already know that we are in a housing crisis but for many young people from working-class communities being priced out of the market is not the issue. Being able to afford the rent is not the issue. They are not even getting invited to that market. Renting is not even an option for them. Hidden homelessness among young people has doubled in the past five years but we believe that this number is much greater. I could probably think of 30 young people right now who might be living with extended family. They are not down on the floor of the people they live in with. They are couch-surfing. They are living in overcrowded accommodation where they pull out a mattress from under a sibling's bed at the end of the day and sleep on the floor.

Dolphin House is one of the largest remaining flat complexes in Dublin which is currently going through a decade of regeneration with only one of those phases being complete. Overcrowding and damp conditions are significant issues which determine whether children might have a dining room table to have their dinner or to do their homework at.

We need to address the long-term impacts of children experiencing poverty, to identify children and families most at risk of persistent poverty and support their emotional, social, physical and developmental well-being. Unless we do this, we are not only describing poor outcomes for child but talking about affecting their life chances.

The issue needs to be addressed also in policy and with policy solutions. There is soon to be a formalised European Union child guarantee that states that every child in Europe needs to have access to free healthcare, free childcare, decent housing and adequate nutrition with a real focus on children from marginalised communities. Our question is, what would that look like in Ireland and how could this be guaranteed?