David Norris (Independent)

I have just come from a long meeting of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs which did some constructive and positive work and passed unanimously an agreed statement on Gaza. In circumstances such as these, I always begin my contribution by saying I will probably not need eight minutes and then find eight minutes is not enough. On this occasion, I probably have more time than is necessary.

I heard the end of the contribution made by my good friend, Senator Ormonde. I agree with much of what has been said by Senators on the Government side and understand the constrictions of their position. The Senator spoke passionately about remedial teachers. While she may not be able to vote in certain ways, she has an influence through her party's parliamentary committee meetings.

One aspect of child poverty is the impoverishment of children through the removal of the kind of educational supports which are necessary. This country always had such an extraordinary reputation. If one goes back to the 19th century and the hedge schools, people were prepared to sit in the ditch. The hedge schools gave a damned good education in the classics to untutored, deprived people from an impoverished background. I am proud of that. If we could do it then, surely we ought to be able to do it now in terms of removing the limitations announced this morning on the most disadvantaged children, children with mental handicap or whatever the current phrase is. I am sorry if that is politically incorrect but old people like me use these phrases. I urge decent people on the other side of the House not to be misled by an apparently confrontational tone, which always happens on Wednesday evenings, but to go back, informed by this debate, and put as much pressure as possible on the Government.

As I was involved in committees, I am not sure how much has been put on the record. We probably all received briefings from various groups. What impresses me about the briefing from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the End Poverty Coalition, in particular, is that it chimes so exactly with my experience as a practising politician. Last week, without divulging the identity of the person, I put on the record the gist of a communication I received from an admirable young man living in provincial Ireland. He had worked for a construction company for a number of years and had saved, scrimped and managed so that he could acquire his own company. He got his own company but was blasted by the economic downturn. Calamitously, he had other personal debts so he is in an extremely difficult position. The most heartbreaking thing of all was that he had to go to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at Christmas so that his children would have some kind of Christmas. Perhaps some of my colleagues have put some of these stories on the record.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul gave examples which are probably from a variety of sources and combined together. One of the saddest was the story about the single mother whose husband died just before Christmas. She experienced devastating grief right in the middle of the holiday season. She had no money and the funeral expenses etc. overwhelmed her. She had no spare cash and yet she had small children. Her 17 year old son begged her, out of pride, not to go to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul but she did. She had to do so and overcome not only her pride but her son's. There is also a poverty in terms of psychological diminishment.

Poverty is not only a financial matter but it is also a grievous state of mind where things can get really out of kilter. We spoke the other evening about suicide. People can be driven to suicide by financial pressure. I would say to them it is not worth it; it is only bloody money. They will get out of their difficulties. I congratulate the Money Advice and Budgeting Service which does fantastic work. I hope it never catches the Government's eye and gets abolished.

In 2003 the Government gave a commitment to reduce poverty to 2% by 2007 and, where possible, to eliminate poverty altogether. I do not believe it is possible to eliminate poverty because it is a human phenomenon. It can occur not only through accident or economic turbulence outside the individual's control but because of a person's personality. Some people just cannot manage money. Some people are manic depressive, they are wonderful people but they go off on a skite and spend every penny they have and reach the limit on their credit cards. I do not believe we will ever eliminate child or adult poverty.

If one looks at the figures which lie behind this laudable aim, child poverty was estimated at 6.5% in 2001 but the latest figures for 2007 show it at 7.4%. It went up by over 1% so instead of a decrease, there has been an increase. Some 76,000 children live in poverty and a further 205,000 live in households at risk of poverty. That perilous condition of being at risk of poverty, where one must be penurious about everything, including school books, trips, clothes and keeping up with the other children, is also a fairly crushing kind of poverty. Children also go to school hungry.

Poverty and deprivation also have an impact on the further development of children. The Labour Party motion lists these various things, including the number of children living in poverty and the commitment to eliminate child poverty, so at least I am on target. It also mentions the necessity to develop a clear strategy on child poverty, which does not seem to exist. There does not seem to be a clear and coherent policy.

It is very worthwhile looking at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul figures. The society states that living in poverty impacts on every area of a child's life. There is no escape from poverty just as there was no escape from the Israeli shells for the unfortunate civilians in Palestine. Some 62% of the requests for help received in 2008 by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Dublin office, which is the largest in the country, came from families with children. As in the example I put on the record, there was a bulge just before Christmas. Christmas creates this kind of social and financial pressure.

Very often the Society of St. Vincent de Paul notices that financial problems are compounded because of the restricted access to social welfare payments and the fact that many people are in enormous debt. It gives a couple of examples which I hope others have not put on the record. It is worth putting a human face on this. This is a real example, although names etc. have been changed. A man called the Society of St. Vincent de Paul before Christmas and said his gas had been cut off. That is a practical thing. If one has no money, what does one do? The ESB then called, because things never happen singularly, to say it was going to cut off the electricity. Thank God for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It is a criticism of this State and its policies that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul had to be called in. The State should be there, especially in the light of the things repeated from 1919 in the Mansion House last month.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul also helps people to manage debt and it helps lone parents. I instanced the case of one woman whose husband died suddenly and tragically. However, there are parents who are parenting on their own all the time. Some 45% of calls for help in the Dublin region in 2008 came from lone parents. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul gave the example of a woman with a 12 year old son struggling to get by. Her most recent electricity and gas bills were approximately €180 but she could not afford to pay them. She called the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for the first time in December 2008 requesting assistance. Her main concern was protecting her son from the situation in which they found themselves. Again, there is this kind of pride of not wishing to accept poverty.

Poverty is seen as demeaning. It is an inheritance from the past. Nobody wants to be detected in poverty by the neighbours. How cruel that can be for children. I know how cruel it can be because I remember how cruel I and all the other little brats were. A little sign of poverty, whether a child turning up in school with a broken strap on a rucksack, a battered thermos flask, a hole in a shoe or a sock, or long hair which obviously should have been cut, marks the child out as different and he or she will be the target of bullying.

We should honour the Labour Party for tabling this important motion, thank our friends in Fianna Fáil for listening and ask them to go back to see if they can strengthen the Government's position in this area even in a time of financial hardship.