Mr. Robin Hanan:

We thank the joint committee for its invitation. We circulated a submission, but there was a slight misunderstanding in that regard. We understood our submission was to be made in the context of The Spirit Level; therefore, there are a number of references to that book, which might seem somewhat strange. However, we can explain them as we move along.

Essentially, we want to talk about the way in which the recession has affected poverty levels and impacted on equality in Ireland. The members of the European Anti-Poverty Network in Ireland are local, community-based anti-poverty groups throughout the country and national organisations dealing with issues such as homelessness and groups such as Travellers and lone parents, as well as community development projects, family resource centres and so forth. Members come together in our network to find ways of influencing policy and putting the fight against poverty at the top of the Irish and European agendas. We are very concerned that while there has been a lot of talk about the importance of protecting the most vulnerable since 2008 and the onset of the recession, in practice, according to our members and all available statistics, the issue of poverty is sliding down the agenda.
The Spirit Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, talks about the importance of equality to the whole of society. It argues that more equal societies, in almost all cases, are more successful in being more cohesive and having better health outcomes, not just for people experiencing poverty but for all of society. Physical and mental health tends to be better, while levels of crime and imprisonment are much lower in more equal societies. Issues such as drug abuse are very much symptoms of unequal societies. The issue of trust is very closely linked, as one would expect, with how equal or divided a society is. Our members' experience is that these issues have a particular resonance for those living on very low incomes, suffering discrimination, living in communities with high levels of long-term unemployment and affected by poverty in different ways.

Ireland has a reputation across Europe because of a number of very important innovations introduced by various Governments during the years which have been copied in other countries. I refer specifically to strategies to fight poverty, both in targeting areas of disadvantage and in producing overall national strategies. This dates back to the poverty programmes introduced during the time of the late Deputy Frank Cluskey in the 1970s which were initiated by Ireland and taken up across Europe. This was the very first attempt to put serious money behind communities to help them to solve their own problems, as opposed to communities simply relying on services being provided for them.

The national anti-poverty strategy of the 1990s set targets and frameworks for progressively eliminating poverty and introduced the concept of poverty proofing, a concept I will be discussing this morning and which has now been taken up throughout Europe. Our concern is that while these initiatives are important in themselves and on paper, they have not been matched by the type of investment needed to secure a more equal and a more participative society.

Our handout provides some of the figures - I will not go into the details now - from the latest CSO press release on poverty. Among other forms of poverty the document refers to measuring the level of deprivation. This includes the number of people who cannot afford basic things such as heating their homes or buying a warm coat. It is shocking, although not unexpected from our experience, to see that the number of people suffering this type of deprivation has increased by half since 2008 to 25% of the population, and that one third of all children in the country are suffering from deprivation in these terms.

Groups traditionally hit by poverty tend to get less coverage in the media than new groups coming into poverty or who are experiencing poverty in severe ways for the first time. Groups traditionally affected by poverty include lone parents, the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed, Travellers and ethnic minorities. These remain the people worst hit by poverty. The progress we were beginning to make towards the end of the Celtic tiger years and in the last years before the recession have been seriously reversed in recent years.

It is not enough for the country to dust off the existing national anti-poverty strategy, which, we believe, has not been fully implemented. We need to consider seriously where the country is going in terms of the fight against poverty. The central idea of the national anti-poverty strategy, which dates back to 1997, is the idea that every area of policy should be proofed for its impact on poverty. This has become part of a broader impact assessment in terms of poverty and inequality. The idea is that the annual budget should be assessed to determine its impact on poverty and that crime strategies, housing strategies, the Finance Bill, welfare strategies, health services and so on should all be assessed in this way. The idea is that all of these should be designed to be a part of the overall fight against poverty and that there should be an all-government approach driven by the concept of poverty proofing. While poverty proofing continues as a technical exercise and much good work has been done in the Department of Social Protection in terms of trying to monitor policy, we are concerned that it is not part of the public debate about where the country is going or the debate about the jobs, services and welfare supports needed to seriously fight poverty.

Our submission includes six steps to be taken, although we will not go into the detail now. However, there will be an opportunity for Deputies and Senators who wish to take up issues to explore anything they believe to be important. The concepts of poverty proofing and impact assessment are central to everything we are concerned about, as is what is often referred to as the triangle of quality jobs, welfare supports to help people out of poverty and accessible services. We believe these services, including quality health services, quality transport services and quality education services for everyone, as opposed to the two-tier services we often see in the country, are absolutely central. The approach must involve removing poverty traps. We pointed out in our previous submission on the budget that we are concerned that some of the current and recent welfare cuts and changes to benefit eligibility have made it more difficult for people on low incomes to take up work.

The work in this area must be driven by an approach that supports community development. This is one of the strongest ideas dating back to Frank Cluskey's poverty programmes of the 1970s, which represented a significant contribution from Ireland to Europe in this area. The idea is that we put serious resources into supporting community development and into projects run by communities themselves. At the moment the entire community sector is very much under threat in terms of cuts and also in terms of the narrowing of its scope for action and the replacement of community development driven by local people with services.

Finally, we need to consider how to attack poverty. This is why we maintain decisions must involve serious investment. Serious investment involves making decisions about taxation, which, in our view, Ireland has largely dodged not only in recent years but going back decades. Traditionally Ireland has been a low-tax country. Perhaps this is something we do not feel as citizens because of the way taxes are heavily weighted in certain sections of the population, but the overall tax take, especially on the rich and on property, has been rather low and we believe the overall tax take should be brought up to European levels.

Our final message is that now is the time to think about equality and poverty because it is during recessions when the big decisions are taken. There have been few examples throughout the world of anyone building a national health service when times were good. They were built in the aftermath of war and during the great recession. There are few examples of welfare states being built when times were good. They were built during the recession of the 1930s or in the 1940s after the war. The period of emerging from a recession is when we get to think about what type of society we want to live in. This is why we are grateful to the committee for taking up this debate in its broader scope now aside from its day-to-day work, which involves monitoring individual items of legislation and individual policy proposals as they come through from day to day. This is a useful time to sit back and consider the issue.

We circulated a submission on the fund for European aid to the most deprived. I understand it is being handled separately at a different meeting but if the Chairman wishes I can comment on it now.