Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

-----than the Fine Gael TDs sitting opposite me. That is the community and voluntary sector, the sector that looks after the people who live in poverty. "Poverty" is a word that is very seldom heard in this House. It is a word the Government has forgotten. The Government speaks about inclusion. Yes, inclusion is great. It is a nice word and all the rest of it. However, I am talking about actual poverty.

Poverty is a reality for many tens of thousands of people, and particularly for children. It is also a reality for many tens of thousands of pensioners. I have just come off the phone to a friend of mine who was the CEO of the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament. One point she made to me, very strongly, was about the carer's allowance. Many, many senior citizens care for family members, some of whom are in their thirties, forties and fifties with disabilities and problems. When a carer turns 66 and gets the pension, the carer's allowance is cut in half. What sort of treatment or recognition is that of people who are doing a job that is absolutely needed? The means test, which should have been dropped and was not, has been mentioned many times in the House, but imagine caring for somebody for decades and when you come to get your old age pension the carer's allowance is cut in half a day after turning 66. That is absolutely outrageous and this has knocked an awful lot of older people into poverty.

People are saying the €12 increase is great and at least it is not a fiver but it has to be put in the context of the cost-of-living increases and also of promises made to elderly people. The Government's roadmap for social inclusion four or five years ago argued that payments for elderly people - people who have retired - need to be linked to 34% of the national average wage. That has never happened in one of the richest countries in the world and yet it is the norm across Europe for pension payments to be linked to the average industrial wage. Instead of getting €12 if the payment had been index-linked with the average industrial wage pensioners today should be getting an extra €31. It falls €19 short of doing right by them. We find more and more older people are falling into poverty and find pensioners struggling to survive.

For example, Nat O'Connor of Age Action said he is:

... relieved to see the State pension has gone up by more than a fiver... [but] a €12 per week increase does not replace the lost spending power since 2020. The core rate of the pension would need to be increased by a further €19 on top of the €12 to have the same spending power ... [as] 2020.

Imagine that, they have the same spending power as nearly five years ago. No account is being taken of how the cost-of-living increases have put pressure on the poorest people.

With regard to child poverty, we know extreme poverty among children has risen by 27% and that there is a higher chance - by 7% - that children living in poverty have a disability. According to the ERSI child poverty could be reduced by 25%, which would affect approximately 40,000 children, if the Government had introduced a special means test for child poverty on top of doubling the benefits.

Poverty has a negative impact on those it affects and the younger and longer one suffers from poverty the more one is affected. It affects the outcomes at the other end. At the other end there is the need for addiction services, family intervention supports, and justice services for young people who will end up in trouble with the law and will go to prison precisely because of the way they were born and reared in poverty.

I am going to keep saying "poverty" in this House because nobody on the other side of the House recognises that it exists. It is a reality.

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