Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 23 and 46 together.

The new national action plan for social inclusion was launched last week with an overall goal to make a decisive impact on consistent poverty. This is underlined by the fact that a new target is being set, using an updated set of indicators, which is more realistic and in keeping with living standards today. The new target is to reduce the number of those experiencing consistent poverty to between 2% and 4% by 2012, with the aim of eliminating consistent poverty by 2016, under the revised definition. The new target reflects experience and advice that it may be difficult to bring consistent poverty down to zero, due in part to the subjective and sensitive nature of the survey questions used to identify deprivation.

The consistent poverty measure was developed independently by the ESRI in 1987 using indicators of deprivation based on standards of living at that time. This measure identifies the proportion of people, from those with less than 60% of median income, who are deprived of one or more goods or services considered essential for a basic standard of living. The target set in 2002 was to reduce the numbers of those who are consistently poor to 2% by 2007 and, if possible, to eliminate consistent poverty, as then defined.

A major discontinuity between the living in Ireland survey, previously used for monitoring progress against the target, and the new EU survey on income and living conditions, introduced from 2003, means that it is not possible to compare trends in consistent poverty between the two surveys. However, continuing low levels of unemployment and the substantial resources devoted to social welfare and other social services support the view that the downward trend in consistent poverty, from 8.3% in 1994 to 4.1% in 2001, would have continued and the target would have been reached by 2007 using the living in Ireland survey method. The first three years of EU survey data indicate the overall consistent poverty rate reduced from 8.8% in 2003 to 7% in 2005. Some 250,000 people, including 100,000 children, have been lifted out of deprivation since 1997 as a result of concentrated and targeted measures and supports.

The Government, in setting the new poverty reduction target, has accepted the advice of the ESRI to use an updated set of deprivation indicators, which focus to a greater degree on items reflecting social inclusion and participation in society. This will see the current measure, based on lacking one or more items from an eight-item index, changing to one based on lacking two or more items from an 11-item index. This revised set of indicators will be used to measure consistent poverty over the course of the new NAPinclusion. The current rate of consistent poverty using the new measure is 7.0%.

While the consistent poverty measure is the official Government approved poverty measure, other poverty measures highlight different aspects of poverty. The at-risk-of-poverty measure is the best known and quoted as it affords some comparisons with other countries. However, it does not measure poverty as such, but rather the proportion of people below a certain income threshold. I have previously expressed my strong concerns regarding the use of this measure by the UN when creating its human poverty index.

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Furthermore, the UN Development Programme, in an article last year in the prominent journal, Development and Transition, restated the problems inherent in using the at-risk-of-poverty indicator for international comparisons, concluding that the results too often belie common sense — the at-risk-of-poverty label sends the wrong signal to the public and policy makers — and the risk-of-poverty logic does not lead to effective national policy. While the latest EU-SILC results do show that our at-risk-of-poverty rates are falling, from 19.7% in 2003 to 18.5% in 2005, I continue to believe that this measure gives a misleading impression of poverty as at-risk-of-poverty levels are affected by increases in incomes generally. I am confident that the new NAPinclusion will build on the achievements of the last decade and deliver greater social inclusion and a society in which remaining consistent poverty is finally eliminated.

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